redvsblue Season 2 Remastered

Another month, and a second season's worth of remastered redvsblue videos to cover. In case you are unfamiliar with the web series redvsblue, please check out my entry covering the first season from last month where I go into the origins of the show and why the earlier seasons are being remastered. Season two (trailer) is continuing the Blood Gulch Chronicles saga that makes up the first five seasons of the show, and is entirely shot from gameplay from the first Halo on original Xbox, but for this remaster the PC version is used to get a HD resolution on BluRay.

Spoilers ahoy for those who have not finished the first season yet, but when we left off, an attempted blue assault on the red base went terribly awry when Donut (Dan Godwin) got a lucky grenade toss that led to the demise of Tex (Kathleen Zuelch). This had the side effect of the infectious AI called O'Malley that had control over Tex leaving her body upon her death, and via travelling through the open channel in his radio, wound up being attached to Caboose (Joel Heyman). The spirit of Church (Burnie Burns) ends up possessing the android body of Lopez for a majority of this season to give him a reason to be riding with the blues still in some capacity, and rest assured it seems that just like in comic books that no one stays truly dead in redvsblue because soon enough Tex's spirit arrives on the scene.

A new character joins the fray early on as a medic gets dispatched down to Blood Gulch. His real name is too hard to pronounce, so Church officially calls him Doc (Matt Hullum). Doc is not a big hit with either the reds or the blues, so it was fun watching both sides get tired of babysitting him before abandoning him. Rest assured Doc will play a bigger role as the season progresses, but a good chunk of the season is spent on the blues coming up with a plan on removing the sinister AI out of Caboose.

Meanwhile on the red base side of things, Sarge (Matt Hullum) has his own devious plan to get Grif (Geoff Ramsey) and Simmons (Gustavo Sorola) to work better together and stop their bickering. Sarge also is desperate to get his favorite android Lopez back, and even constructs two new androids in hopes to pull off a trade to get Lopez back. The final act builds towards this big hostage trade, and of course things do not go according to plan, and a bizarre firefight erupts. The season ends on another cliffhanger alluding to us that it looks like both the reds and blues are taking their war outside of Blood Gulch and finally exploring onto the many other maps available in Halo.

Just like the first season, season two looks fantastic being remastered in HD with the prettier PC version of Halo. Unfortunately, the six bonus PSA video featuring the redvsblue crew shedding their wisdom about various holidays are not remastered, but provide a great comparison to show you how far they came on making the remastered videos really pop in HD. All the other original extra features are back also with about 15 minutes of deleted scenes and ten minutes of outtakes, as well as the original commentary. There is no bonus commentary for season two, so I gave the original commentary another listen, and like last time it was fascinating listening to the Rooster Teeth crew talk shop about setting up some of their shots and the stories that came out of the crazy long production days they endured.

I thought the second season of redvsblue held up well just like the initial season. Again, this is primarily because almost all of this season transpires on Blood Gulch. A couple other maps make small cameos in certain scenes, but by and large this is still another season of the red and blue armies going at it in the fan favorite map of Halo. Besides both armies being up to their usual tomfoolery, the lore of this universe really starts to unfold this season with the O'Malley AI breaking out as the series' primary antagonist. I liked how the season played out, and still did not mind the cliffhanger because it was enticing to see which maps and new direction that Rooster Teeth Productions would take the series going into season three. I am hoping this time around that redvsblue will be easier to follow and less convoluting when watching these seasons in quicker fashion in individual sittings like a movie instead of over the course of many weeks when they were originally released in weekly bite sized episodes.

Looking forward to covering season three next month, because if my memory serves me right, it is when the series makes the jump to being produced with the Halo 2 engine. You can join in the fun reliving these episodes with me by watching them for free on the Rooster Teeth website and YouTube channelor by getting the ten year anniversary set off Amazon. See you all next month for season three!

Past redvsblue Blogs

Season 1

Macho Man: The Randy Savage Story

A few months ago, the WWE finally gave "Macho Man" Randy Savage the proper home video treatment in the form of a feature length documentary with the release of Macho Man: The Randy Savage Story (trailer). This is long overdue because of WWE's and Randy's rocky relationship since he left the company in 1994. Before this, the only other Randy Savage set WWE put out was 2009's Macho Madness DVD, which was simply a collection of matches. The two sides were starting what seemed like a gradual healing process with Savage doing a couple of promotional appearances shortly before his untimely death in 2011. Several weeks ago WWE finally announced that Randy Savage will be making his long awaited entry into WWE's Hall of Fame. So in anticipation of that event next month, now is as good as time as ever to review Macho Man: The Randy Savage Story.

I could rattle on forever about Macho Man's career, but I already wrote a tribute to him chronicling his career right after he passed for my old friends at Team Fremont/Robot Panic/Mojo Menace. For this entry, I want to focus on how WWE's biography portrayed the Macho Man and how much attention they gave/ignored for various parts of his career. The bio is quite fascinating because it is mostly a fitting tribute to him, but WWE does put a unique spin on certain aspects of his career worth going into.

There is a nice opening intro on Randy's childhood setting the stage with him being a second generation wrestler of Angelo Poffo, and his brother Lanny following in his footsteps as well. For those that did not know, Savage was an aspiring pro baseball player originally, and the documentary gives a decent amount of time interviewing childhood friends and teammates about his time playing baseball growing up and his years in class A minor league baseball. While covering his transition to wrestling I was surprised they dedicated a little time about his runs in CWF and Memphis that caught the attention of the WWE which helped landed him and Lanny jobs over there. Jerry Lawler helps shed some details of their rivalry, along with some brief clips from their headlining feud from the Memphis territory in the mid-80s.

WWE had an old interview with Savage they used in spurts throughout this feature from 1993 I had no idea existed until this documentary. He is in the full Macho Man get up, but is mostly talking out of character about his career through that point, which helps compliments the bio through his WWE days. A lot of time is given showcasing the vintage "Macho Man" look with his colorful and flamboyant outfits, but the WWE does it in a ostensibly disrespectful way. This biography claims that Savage had a smaller body compared to other WWE headliners and pointed out he had bigger ring entrance costumes to disguise that and the bio went further out of its way to point out Savage wrestled on his toes a lot to allegedly hide the fact he was a little shorter than the average main eventer. This whole segment should have been cut, as it comes off like WWE only desires ripped up body builders in the main event and that WWE feels ashamed that they let Randy have so much success much like they constantly point out Daniel Bryan's shortcomings with all the success he had in recent years. It was not like Savage wrestled with the ring gear on once the match started, and I felt it was always just a small part of the success of the flashy "Macho Man" character, the same way with the one-of-a-kind cadence on how he moved around the ring that made him stand out in a good way and not in a negative fashion like WWE wants you to believe here all these years later. This scene just felt slimy and bitter on WWE's part with WWE wanting to go out of their way to get a few potshots in at Randy so they got the last word in their tumultuous relationship.

Throughout the feature they also spend a lot of time about his relationship with his on air manager and then real life wife, Miss Elizabeth. Besides detailing the highs on how Elizabeth was a great part of "Macho Man" act and their main event wedding ceremony of Summerslam '91, it later goes into real life lows. We get insight from a few of their colleagues like Hulk Hogan and Ted DiBiase providing comments about how Randy was always extra protective of Elizabeth to a fault, and later going more in depth about how their marriage wounded up in a divorce. Time is also given to Liz's untimely death in 2003 when she was residing with Lex Luger, with Luger surprisingly on hand to provide some present day thoughts on Liz and Randy. This is all fact to the best of my knowledge of how Randy acted backstage, and pertinent info on Randy's life that warranted some attention. However, on a feature that is mostly about celebrating Randy's career I could not help that it felt a bit overkill on their behind-the-scenes drama, especially when compared to other failed relationships in wrestling history that got little to no attention in other wrestler's biographies WWE put out over the years.

Speaking of the WWE management, unlike most of their other biographies, no McMahons or Triple H are on hand to pay their respects to the Macho Man. This is understandable because of all the controversial rumors about what lead to Savage leaving the WWF, but part of me still wants to know what they would have said about Randy all these years later had they been interviewed.

The feature does give plenty of time profiling his rise through the ranks and his prolific run with the Intercontinental Championship, including his career defining match with Ricky Steamboat at Wrestlemania III. Steamboat and other legends like Bret Hart are on hand here and provide emotional memories about that classic match still fresh to them all these years later. The feature proceeds to capture his other glorious highs of the 80s from winning his first WWF Championship at Wrestlemania IV, to the success of the rise and fall of the Mega Powers tag team with Hulk Hogan that climaxed with their unforgettable main event at Wrestlemania V. I like how the bio treats Randy's villainous turn as him reinventing himself as the "Macho King" and aligning himself with "Sensational" Sherri.

Also props to WWE for interviewing representatives from the company that manufactures the convenience store sensation meat snack, Slim Jim. Randy became synonymous with the beefy, spicy snack for their over-the-top "extreme" 90s advertising that was a perfect fit for the Macho Man character as he was their spokesperson in countless memorable ads for a majority of the 1990s. I lost track of how many of those damn tasteless things I ate because of how ridiculously awesome those ads were (yes Macho, higher education does have me down in the dumps!). It was good to see the Slim Jim reps had fond memories of Savage being a class act as they reminisced about him having no problem recording countless takes for their commercials and Savage going out of his way showing up to support their NASCAR team.

Unfortunately they decided not to give time to cover some of my other childhood favorite feuds of Randy with his great retirement match at Wrestlemania VII with the Ultimate Warrior and his second WWF Championship win against Ric Flair at Wrestlemania VIII. Instead, the bio jumps to him taking a backseat in his final WWF years as an announcer and use this as WWE's angle on what lead to him leaving the company at the end of 1994 and going to WCW. Randy's brother Lanny provides a few other reasons here with Randy brewing resentment with a tale on how the company disrespected his father a few years earlier, and the WWF denying him a rivalry with an up-and-coming Shawn Michaels that Randy pleaded for as his last big feud in the company as more reasons as why he left. Lanny goes on to say the 1996 "Billionair Ted" satire skits that poked fun at WCW by highlighting Hogan and Savage's old age and bald spots were the last straw that caused a big rift between Savage and the WWE. I honestly have no idea about the validity of the aforementioned controversial rumors, but hearing Lanny's side here and him going more into detail in another recent interview Lanny did with Wade Keller lead me to lean more to this all combining for why Randy left the company and the actual reasons there was a big grudge between the two parties for so long.

The biography kinds of glosses over Randy's five year tenure in WCW for the remainder of the 1990s. A bunch of assorted highlights are shown, but the only real parts of his WCW career that got some extra coverage was his big time grudge with Diamond Dallas Page in 1997, where DDP is on hand here to discuss how thankful he was for Savage helping him break out into the main even tier in WCW with this rivalry. Other than a brief nod to Savage's last WCW run with his "Team Madness" faction where he came out accompanied with three lovely ladies, there is not much at all about discussed about his WCW years which is unfortunate because he did have a bunch of other really good encounters and feuds there in his five years there.

The documentary then does a decent job running down his twighlight years after he retired from the business and did a ton of charity work and ended up marrying his old college girlfriend a year before his death. I really liked this portion of his documentary because not much was known about Savage post 2000 other than his awesome cameos in the movies Spider-Man, Ready to Rumble and Bolt, and him making a go of it in the music industry with a rap album. I would have appreciated a joking nod to Randy's film and music endeavors, but I will gladly take this scene focusing on him finding peace and love with his family instead. The main feature has no mention of his very brief run in TNA Wrestling in 2004, but in one of the BluRay exclusive interview snippets, Dusty Rhodes talks about how he was part of management during Randy's TNA stint and he mentions how Savage backed out of a PPV appearance at the last minute because he was ashamed of letting his look go and how he did not want to tarnish his legacy.

After the main feature, there is a collection of 15 matches spanning Savage's WWE and WCW years, with BluRay exclusives featuring an additional four matches and an extra half hour of bonus interview clips that did not make the final cut of the biography. WWE has been pretty good at trying to avoid repeat matches on DVDs when putting out multiple home videos on individual wrestlers, and I did not recognize a single repeat match when comparing this to the match listing in the Macho Madness DVD. This is both good and bad, because a lot of these are fresh match ups I never saw before on video, but the negative is that nearly all of Savage's most remembered bouts were already on the last DVD and a lot of these match ups either have crazy shenanigans taking away from the match or feature Savage in good matches, but coming out on the losing end. For example, you get to see Savage lose both his then-WWF Title and WCW Title to Ric Flair, and lots of early career Savage matches that have screwy finishes. There are still at least several really good bouts on here, with a really good street fight against Bad News Brown in 1989, a surprisingly good match against "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan and another epic No DQ encounter in his classic feud against DDP.

I ended up rambling and going farther in depth about the documentary than I thought I would, but it was worth every word because of the notorious relationship between Savage and the WWE over the years. Even with a few pot shots that overstay their welcome that WWE could not resist, the documentary is a well made tribute to Savage's career for the most part. It feels a smidge short at just over 90 minutes as they could have covered many more parts of Savage's rivalries and outside-the-ring lifestyle and easily went two hours. I also was surprised they did not include a small smattering of some of the vintage Macho Man interviews as extra features like the last collection did. Those gripes aside, Macho Man: The Randy Savage Story is still a much welcomed and long overdue biography that is a must own for any Macho Man fan, especially with his very fast approaching WWE Hall of Fame induction.

Past Wrestling Blogs

Best of WCW Monday Nitro Volume 2
Biggest Knuckleheads
Bobby The Brain Heenan
For All Mankind
Goldberg: The Ultimate Collection
Ladies and Gentlemen My Name is Paul Heyman
Legends of Mid South Wrestling
OMG Vol 2: Top 50 Incidents in WCW History
RoH Supercard of Honor V
RoH Supercard of Honor VI
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
Superstar Collection: Zach Ryder
Warrior Week on WWE Network
Wrestlemania 3: Championship Edition
Wrestlemania 28
Wrestlemania 29
Wrestling Road Diaries Too

Angry Videogame Nerd: The Movie

A few months ago I raved about how big a fan I am of The Angry Videogame Nerd (AVGN) web series. In case you missed that blog, AVGN is portrayed by James Rolfe, who is a stereotypical nerd who loves Rolling Rock and ripping apart terrible NES games in his web series. I also mentioned in that blog that James Rolfe just wrapped up his work with his much anticipated film, Angry Videogame Nerd: The Movie (trailer). It did not have a traditional theatrical run, and instead Rolfe took the film on a ten city tour throughout the United States before it got an online digital release at the end of 2014. Just several weeks ago AVGN: The Movie finally got a BluRay release, complete with a boatload of exclusive extras.

For a few years leading up to the film, the AVGN character randomly teased on his web series to reviewing the most requested game by his fanbase, E.T. on the Atari 2600. After years of teasing, he finally got around to reviewing it in grand fashion by dedicating a whole movie to it. E.T. is notorious for being a horribly licensed movie game rushed to market in time to coincide with the blockbuster Stephen Spielberg directed film. A lot of people point to it as the impetus of the crash of the videogame market in 1983 in the United States, which resulted in a few terrible years of console games until Nintendo resurrected the market with the NES in late 1985. Atari overproduced the game, and bad word-of-mouth resulted in many unsold copies that Atari buried along with plenty of other unsold product in a New Mexico landfill.

The buried Atari product ties into the plot for AVGN: The Movie. Fan demand for a review of E.T. (which is called Eee Tee in this film to avoid a lawsuit from Universal) is so high that upstart videogame publisher Cockburn Industries wants to capitalize on it with a sequel, Eee Tee 2, and promises to make it even worse than the first game. Cockburn sends their representative, Mandi (Sarah Glendening) down to convince the Nerd to make an event out of it by filming a documentary on a road trip to the New Mexico landfill to dig up and review both the original game, and Cockburn's sequel. The Nerd finally commits to the project after pressure from his colleague, Cooper (Jeremy Suarez). The trio's journey to New Mexico does not go as planned because it is filled with plenty of opposition from a secret government agency headed up by General Dark Onward (Stephen Mendel) and his top agent, McButter (Helena Barrett) that has their own confidential reasons why Eee Tee shall forever remain buried.

From following blog posts on Rolfe's website over the years, I remember a full length feature film has been a passion project of his for many years now, and he made sure to go for broke on AVGN: The Movie. The film well surpassed its online crowd funding goal, and wound up with a budget of $325,000. This results in a much more better looking product on screen when compared to the average online AVGN episode. The film is shot entirely in high definition, which yields far better lighting and camera work that can be done with an entire crew when compared to the usual one man production filmed by Rolfe. Rest assured, the film is still filled with plenty of vintage cheesy special effects and action shots the web series is known for, so it is not like the film is trying to pretend to be this grand major motion picture as it retains plenty of the essence that lead to the popularity of the web series.

One of the recurring themes on the AVGN web series is he randomly will get interrupted in one of his game reviews by a villain associated with the game being reviewed and the villain and The Nerd will duke it out in an over-the-top cheesy fight scene. Now that Rolfe has an actual film budget, he went all out with a mythical gigantic robot on a rampage destroying some of the country's landmark structures. As I alluded to in the prior paragraph, these action scenes look far more ambitious and impressive compared to the action scenes from the web series, but do not hold a candle to almost anything done by major film studios, but I mean that in a good way because the film embraces the hokey, low-rent special effects the web series is known for.

As for how I felt on AVGN: The Movie as a whole, I had my highs and lows with it, but I enjoyed it for the most part. I felt Rolfe really nailed the opening setting up The Nerd's lifestyle outside of his gaming room, and what lead to him finally going on the road trip to New Mexico. Once they get to New Mexico though, there were parts where the pacing started to drag in parts with a little too much emphasis on constantly trying to run away from General Onward's forces and whatever the newest threat they put in front of The Nerd, Mandi and Cooper. The final, big climatic action scenes were fun to watch, but I felt they could have easily trimmed a little bit off of it as the film feels just a bit too long at nearly two hours in length.

I kept trying to keep in mind this is mostly a passion project for Rolfe and it is not like he has access to top Hollywood stars. Most of the cast does put in a commendable performance, but a lot of the smaller roles are filled in from well, not-so-experienced actors who kind of stand out a little bit in a way the hotel clerk from one of my favorite videogames, Heavy Rain does. I will give the film the benefit of the doubt because a lot of those smaller roles are filled in by fans and guest stars from the online gaming scene. Nitpicking aside, I still liked the film for the most part because I could not help, but feel great for Rolfe living out his dream of making a feature length movie driven entirely on a grass roots level by fan demand and crowd funding and eschewing the traditional major film distribution model.

James Rolfe makes sure you get your $20 worth from the BluRay release by filling it with over ten hours of bonus content. Being the nut that I am, I made sure to watch each and every minute of all the extra features (it took me over a week to do so!). If you do not have time for the plethora of extras, I highly recommend first listening to the commentary track from the two directors, James Rolfe and Kevin Finn who go into a lot of details on how everything was shot and provide lots of facts and tidbits on all the actors and production that a lot of the other extra features also detail. Some of the bonus content that really stood out to me was a 20 minute review from Doug Walker, aka the man behind the web series, The Nostalgia Critic, and even though he has a cameo in the film he makes sure to calls this film like he sees it. There is a 48 minute compilation of b-roll footage of filming the gigantic robot monster scenes that is fun to jump around into seeing how they pulled off those shots.

There are nearly an hour and a half of behind-the-scenes interviews separated into several parts. The two interviews here that I recommend checking out are with E.T. game designer Howard Scott Warshaw and film composer Bear McCreary (also famous for being composer of the hit TV series, The Walking Dead), as both interviews discuss their story on how both of them became involved with the film. There is nearly two hours of Q&A sessions included from various cons hyping up the film and other sessions that took place while the film was on tour across the country, and it is awesome seeing the crowd's raw emotion right after seeing the film. The final two big chunks of extras are on the set video diaries with the cast and crew totaling just over an hour and a half, and video diaries from the main AVGN website throughout the film's two year production that total for just under two hours. Both are not required viewing, but I still got a lot out of it as it felt like Rolfe is meticulously updating the production journey from beginning to end. So yes, obviously more extras than you probably wanted and parts of it got to be a little bit of a chore to get through, but for all the ardent fans of AVGN, you could not be happier with the whopping amount of extras on the BluRay.

Ultimately, it was great to see AVGN: The Movie finally come to fruition, and yes he does eventually give the proper AVGN review treatment to E.T. during the closing credits. You do not have to pay to see the movie if you want to only see his long anticipated review of the game since Rolfe has kindly spliced out the review and has it up on the AVGN website for free. For longtime fans of the show, you owe it to yourself to watch Angry Videogame Nerd: The Movie and see the passion project Rolfe has had in store for us for his most requested game to review ever.

Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs

3
12 Angry Men (1957)
21 Jump Street
Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Bounty Hunters
Captain America: The First Avenger
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Faster
Field of Dreams
Fight Club
The Fighter
For Love of the Game
Good Will Hunting
Hercules: Reborn
Ink
Marine 3: Homefront
Marine 4: Moving Target
Rocky I-VI
Running Films Part 1
Running Films Part 2
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Source Code
Star Trek I-XII
TMNT
Veronica Mars
The Wrestler (2008)

redvsblue Season 1 Remastered

It is hard to believe how fast time flies. Can you believe it has been nearly 12 years since the debut of the web series, redvsblue? In case you are not familiar with the series, it is from the folks at Rooster Teeth Productions and was one of the first online series made entirely out of a videogame engine and helped kick off the genre that came to be known as ‘machinima.’ Part of the reason they exploded with popularity was because they filmed the game capturing footage from the most popular game at the time on the original Xbox, Halo. They quickly caught the eye of Halo’s publisher, Microsoft, and instead of facing a cease and desist order they were surprisingly able to collaborate and have been pumping out new episodes and seasons of content ever since.

Every year Rooster Teeth assembles a season’s worth of episodes and releases them on DVD. I owned the first several seasons on DVD, as I initially was a big fan of the show and did a yearly sponsorship for Rooster Teeth where you would get first access to HD videos online before everyone else and at the end of the season they would mail me the annual DVD for free. After a couple seasons they stopped that nice perk of the free DVD, and the story kept getting more convoluted and harder for me to follow as the years went on. By season four I was not rushing to watch the newest video they put out on the day of release and I dropped my sponsorship and instead would bank several episodes at a time to the point they were getting to be a chore to watch. I believe I stepped away from the show a few episodes into season five if I remember correctly.

A couple years ago Rooster Teeth remastered all the early seasons of redvsblue in HD and released the first 10 seasons as a big compilation on BluRay for their 10 year anniversary in 2013. The set went for a pretty high amount, but a few months ago Amazon had a cannot miss lightning deal on it and I could not help but snatch it up. I traded in all my old DVDs of the first few seasons upon getting the prettier BluRay release, and am going to try and watch a season a month and update on it here. Hopefully going back into this with a fresh set of eyes all these years later will reinvigorate my interest for the show and I will finally see what transpired where I left off around season five.

It is worth noting here you can catch most individual episodes of redvsblue for free on their website or YouTube channel. I recommend the home video releases because it features smooth transitions between the three to five minute episodes and a whole season plays out like a seamless hour and a half movie instead of having to deal with opening and closing musical interludes on each episode.

The subtitle for the first few seasons of redvsblue is The Blood Gulch Chronicles, and that is because it takes place on the insanely popular map of the first Halo, Blood Gulch (season one trailer). I do remember one of the classic opening lines of the very first episode being, “Why are we here?” as two red soldiers, Grif (Geoff Ramsey)and Simmons (Gustavo Sorola) ponder their existence in what appears to be a random meaningless canyon defending their base from a squad of blue soldiers on the other end. The scene is a well crafted preview of the series being mostly dialogue driven, and more focused on the day-to-day shenanigans and unique soldiers that populate Blood Gulch.

That is not to say there is no action, because whenever a melee does erupt, there usually is some kind of storyline reason behind it. For example, based on a hazing ritual fluke, new red recruit Donut (Dan Godwin) winds up with the blue base flag. The blue soldiers make haste in pursuit, with Caboose (Joel Heyman) having all sorts of trouble providing back up in their Scorpion tank that has a lovely voice providing not-so-helpful tutorials who Caboose refers to as Sheila (Yomary Cruz), aka “The lady inside the tank.” Things only get bonkers for the blue team going forwards with an undesirable fate for Church (Burnie Burns), who is quickly replaced by freelancer, Tex (Kathleen Zuelch), who has her own unique set of circumstances and back story she brings to the table.

The red team also has a very interesting set of characters besides Grif, Donut and Simmons. They are headed up by a soldier simply going by Sarge (Matt Hullum) who loves to raise hell and is my pick for most entertaining character of the series, and also have an assistant android going by Lopez who is voiceless for a majority of the season. My good memories of the first season still hold up upon this repeat viewing because of how self contained it is taking place almost entirely on the Blood Gulch map, and it had a simple story of mostly another day in the life of the reds and blues going at it over the most trivial of things. Things open up far more in the coming seasons, especially with Tex’s back story being a huge impetus on the grander story at large in the following seasons that are hinted at as we learn bits and pieces of her origin story in this season. But for this first season it is just a bunch of good old fashioned craziness on Blood Gulch, and I understand they could not do that for every season, and am looking forward on giving the series a second chance all these years later to see where they go after I left off.

The first season of redvsblue was initially shot in standard definition with the first Halo on original Xbox. For this BluRay remaster, they used the PC edition that came out a couple years later and features a higher definition of resolution, and more options for camera angles that are less restrictive than the ones available in the initial Xbox release. For example, Halo multiplayer on Xbox required at least two players so Rooster Teeth had to always crop one half of the split screen and presented it in a super narrow letterbox format, and there was no way to hide the mildly distracting target reticule. I threw in the DVD of the first season for the first few scenes to show to a friend before trading it in last year, and it does not hold up when played back on a HD television and looks rather fuzzy on modern sets. This new remastered BluRay looks smashing in comparison, and it was cool to see Rooster Teeth implement some more subtle camera tricks they learned in later seasons to provide for some more dynamic looking shots that made the first season pop out a little more than before.

This BluRay contains all the previously released extra features, as well as one new bonus. There are several minutes of outtakes of blown shots and cuts that were a hoot to relive. There are also six Public Service Announcement (PSA) videos, where the reds and blues attempt to shed some wisdom on matters like getting tattoos and movie piracy affecting their DVD sales of which none existed at the time. I remember the DVDs were originally loaded with hidden easter eggs, and I tried hunting for some on the BluRay by mindlessly flapping away at my BluRay remote on every option choice, but did not run across one. I guess I got out of the habit of looking for easter eggs in the transition to BluRay and streaming video several years ago, but hopefully they are tucked away somewhere on here. There are two commentary tracks, one with the cast and crew’s original recording in 2003, and a new one for this HD remaster. I listened to the new commentary, and it was actually entertaining all the way through since it features around five or six of the Rooster Teeth crew almost nonstop chatting away reliving their favorite scenes and providing a lot of technical details on how they went about capturing footage with the PC version of Halo. Being a fan of the game, it was fascinating to see them go in depth about the various camera options available and the ordeals they persevered through in order to set up and capture an ambitious shot.

I had a feeling this initial blog for the first redvsblue season was going to be a doozy, but I had no idea it would approach a 1,600 word count. I apologize for providing probably too much background on the origins of Rooster Teeth and redvsblue, but it felt like a necessary evil and I promise all future installments will (probably) be much shorter comparison. I remember talking to a few other friends and colleagues in recent years who at one point watched the show, and a lot of them only stuck around for the first season before dropping off, so the show is not for everybody. I threw in the season one DVD for a friend last year for about the first 15 minutes and he thought it felt a bit too slow-paced for him to get into. Before dropping any money on the DVDs or BluRays, if you have not experienced the show definitely get a taste by checking out individual episodes for free on the Rooster Teeth website or YouTube channel.

Wrestling Road Diaries Too

Most of the wrestling documentaries I own are made by WWE, but every now and again an indy made documentary gathers some good buzz and catches my eye. Some past prime examples I recommend are Heroes of World Class and Forever Hardcore. A few years ago Colt Cabana, Bryan Danielson and Sal Rinauro documented a couple weeks on the indy wrestling road circuit and titled it The Wrestling Road Diaries. Its innovative concept made it one of my favorite wrestling documentaries yet, and I was delighted the sequel, Wrestling Road Diaries Too (trailer) came out in 2014 featuring a week on tour with Colt Cabana (former WWE star Scotty Goldman), Cliff Compton (former WWE Tag Team champ, Domino) and Big LG (former WWE star Festus/Luke Gallows).

I absolutely loved the first film since it was three rather jovial and upbeat fellows you can tell loved their craft no matter what rinky-dink small town or gymnasium they were performing in. This cast for the sequel still loves their craft, but as Cliff Compton put it in one of the extra features, this is more of an "outlaw" version of the first film when the first had the cast in primarily high spirits.

The film starts off in Colt's native Chicago where he meets up with Cliff and LG, and right away you can tell this is going to be an interesting journey because LG just suffered a groin tear in his last match and is determined to make his dates and film the rest of the documentary. LG and Cliff bring a more wild card dynamic to the mix compared to Sal and Bryan in the last film. These two are a bit more rowdy and pull no punches in vile ribs on each other and making it seem you need a high tolerance of good natured clowning around to hang with.

For the audience that does not keep up with the indy wrestling scene, but are curious on what these three guys made of their WWE careers, the film answers that every few scenes by jumping to a random cut with one of the three who pauses to reflect back on their short WWE runs on what did and did not work and how their love for the business keeps them going on the indy circuit. These were really fascinating parts of the documentary as all three show huge amounts of introspection on what they made of their careers thus far and sound genuinely passionate that they keep doing this for as long as their bodies will let them.

The film still gives plenty of time to what I loved about the first film, and that is the lifestyle of traveling to all these small towns and venues. The trio meets plenty of unique characters throughout their travels, and I applaud them for dedicating the movie to a man named Tex that they meet in the middle of the street. I will not even spoil a detail about the mesmerizing Tex, you will have to watch for yourselves to find out all about him! The three get across that one of the highs being on the indy circuit is more time hanging with the fans before and after the show. The fans they interact with are nearly as entertaining as the wrestlers and you can never tell what kind of reaction they would greet them with, which only made the film more spontaneous and enjoyable.

As I alluded to in the intro though, not all is well this time around as the film periodically checks in with LG's groin tear to see it getting worse and worse. I could not help but feel for the guy, and was finally elated to see him get medical attention towards the end of the tour. As unfortunate as this journey was for LG, a little part of me was glad we got to see a glimpse into the dark side of life on the road as a wrestler just so everyone knows that there are the good and bad days to the sport.

You can buy both Wrestling Road Diaries films on their official website for $20, but I highly suggest you shell out an extra $5 for the bonus disc that is available for both films. On the sequel's bonus disc, there is just under an hour of deleted scenes that were highly entertaining and range from random BS sessions on the road to more one-on-one sit down sessions with the three talking about their early days in the industry. In addition to that, there is a bonus video version of Colt's podcast, The Art of Wrestling, recorded in a local Chicago comic book shop with the three where they shed some behind-the-scenes wisdom and do a little Q&A with fans in the shop that lasts a little over an hour. Add it up and is nearly an extra two hours and fifteen minutes of quality content for only an extra $5.

As much as I enjoy most of WWE's documentaries, it is refreshing to step outside their perspective to get an outsider's look at the industry. Wrestling Road Diaries Too is the perfect version of that perspective! If you do not own either installments, I highly recommend getting both to see what life is like for the stars that could not quite make it in the WWE.

Past Wrestling Blogs

Best of WCW Monday Nitro Volume 2
Biggest Knuckleheads
Bobby The Brain Heenan
For All Mankind
Goldberg: The Ultimate Collection
Ladies and Gentlemen My Name is Paul Heyman
Legends of Mid South Wrestling
OMG Vol 2: Top 50 Incidents in WCW History
RoH Supercard of Honor V
RoH Supercard of Honor VI
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
Superstar Collection: Zach Ryder
Warrior Week on WWE Network
WWE Wrestlemania 3: Championship Edition
WWE Wrestlemania 28
WWE Wrestlemania 29

Clash of the Titans (1981)

I was pretty happy with my blog progress for last year, so I will do my best to keep up at least a few movie blogs a month going forward. Right now the plan is to post two random movie blogs a month, along with feeding my wrestling addiction of a random wrestling DVD blog. Even though I averaged around four entries a month last year, I still have quite a backlog left to keep me going for some time. I have a few special series of movies I want to try and get to throughout the year so we will see how it goes. After taking a couple weeks off after wrapping up my 2014 series of blogs with my entry for Star Trek: Into Darkness, let us kick off 2015 with reviewing a 34 year old classic I never saw until this morning.

A few Christmas’s ago my brother gifted me the film on DVD I am covering today, the 1981 original version of Clash of the Titans (trailer). I recall him saying I think I would like it, I also recall this catching me off guard since remember seeing the 2010 remake recently and thinking it was all right, but nothing spectacular. I am guessing he misconstrued me speaking highly of that film, and presumed I must see the original. I am glad I did though, because this film was surprisingly entertaining all these years later.

I am surprised by how much I already forgot that transpired in the remake just five years ago, but as I watched the original Clash of the Titans, bits and pieces came back to me. In the 1981 original, Harry Hamlin stars as Perseus, whose city is destroyed by the wrathful Greek gods, but Zeus (Laurence Oliver), makes sure to save him from exile by seeking him rescue on a remote island. When Perseus reaches adulthood, Zeus wants him to wed him the dazzling Andromeda (Judi Bowker), but only after he conquers a series of insurmountable tasks presented by Zeus’s rival gods.

Right off the bat the impression that I got from the original Clash of the Titans was that this must have been a technical showpiece for 1981 standards. The gods initial attack of Perseus’s homeland looks silly and outdated by today’s standards, but I could have seen it wowing theatrical crowds back in its heyday with huge gushes of water slamming into and tearing down ancient pillars, statues and structures. The many mythological beasts Perseus squares off against throughout the film also must have been a remarkable on screen feat for its day. Of course they look like crudely animated puppets by today’s standards, but again I can only respect what they were able to pull off back then. Speaking of puppets, I do recall unfortunately getting an embarrassing chuckle out of the remake crudely poking fun in a not-so-respectful nod to this first film.

Obviously outdated special effects aside, I rather enjoyed most of the original Clash of the Titans. Probably even a bit more than the remake, this one seems more focused on the narrative, while still trying to wow us with effects when the remake from what I can remember focused on more style over substance. Seeing Perseus overcome each challenge before him got only more and more engrossing for me, and there were even a handful of spots where the clever use of special effects in certain spots stands the test of time. Only drawbacks were sometimes the story could have picked up in a couple spots and felt a little too leisurely paced in certain scenes, and there were a couple moments where I was yelling at Perseus towards the end to just finish off the final foe, the Kraken once and for all while he took his sweet time vanquishing the legendary beast.

There is not too many extra features on this DVD release I have for Clash of the Titans. There is an interactive map of the mythological beasts Perseus faces that jumps to a scene where they are encountered in the film. The only other extra on this DVD is a 12 minute interview with producer Ray Harryhausen who does provide some interesting insight on what it was like filming the movie and getting the locations just right and getting the most out of special effects back then. If you do not mind seeing some outdated special effects, and thought the recent remake was even just all right like I did, then you owe it yourself to see the 1981 original Clash of the Titans, because even with its older coat of paint, it still is easily the superior film.

Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs

3
12 Angry Men (1957)
21 Jump Street
Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Bounty Hunters
Captain America: The First Avenger
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Faster
Field of Dreams
Fight Club
The Fighter
For Love of the Game
Good Will Hunting
Hercules: Reborn
Ink
Marine 3: Homefront
Marine 4: Moving Target
Rocky I-VI
Running Films Part 1
Running Films Part 2
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Source Code
Star Trek I-XII
TMNT
Veronica Mars
The Wrestler (2008)

Star Trek XII: Into Darkness

The 2009 reboot of Star Trek from director JJ Abrams was a big success for Paramount that it was no surprise a sequel was inevitable. In 2013 we got that sequel in the form of Star Trek: Into Darkness (trailer). Nearly all the cast and crew returned for this film, but as I mentioned in my last blog, this will be the final film for JJ Abrams at the helm as Disney locked him in to make the next Star Wars film.

Into Darkness kicks off with the crew of the Enterprise caught up in the middle of a heated mission trying to save a species from dying off. The mission appeared to be a success, but Spock (Zachary Quinto) reports Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) for violating the Prime Directive which results in Kirk getting demoted to Starfleet Academy, and the Enterprise ends up back in the hands of Captain Pike (Bruce Greenwood). Meanwhile, a man under the cover of John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch), has a bad case of revenge on his mind as he destroys a prized research Federation facility and proceeds with an attack on a meeting of Federation leaders which results in the crew of the Enterprise on a manhunt to track down Harrison and bring him to justice.

I will spoil one tidbit about the plot in this paragraph, so if you do not want to be spoiled please jump ahead, and it is not a big spoiler either since it says it on the plot synopsis on the back of the BluRay. In an awesome exchange between Harrison and Kirk, Harrison reveals his true identity as the legendary Star Trek antagonist, Khan. It is probably one of the best dialogue scenes in all of the Star Trek films because Cumberbatch does a remarkable job in his delivery. I had a new perspective on the Khan character because when I first saw Into Darkness in theaters I had not yet seen The Wrath of Khan, which only made the big reveal far more impactful this time around. The original Khan played by Ricardo Montalban had a menacing, post-apocalyptic look to him, but I still dug this reimagining of him in this alternate universe, and Cumberbatch completely owns the character throughout the film.

Into Darkness is also the first time in this alternate universe where we meet the Klingons in a brief encounter when the Enterprise is hunting down Harrison. Uhura (Zoe Saldana) has her big moment here in a verbal showdown with a Klingon commander which does not go so well and leads into a intense firefight with a crew from the Enterprise. Not to be outdone, Bones (Karl Urban), Sulu (John Cho), Scotty (Simon Pegg) and Chekov (Anton Yelchin) all return and have their own moments to shine on the big screen. Watching these last two reboot films with a fresh set of eyes after seeing the first six movies with the original actors for the first time gave me a whole new appreciation for how the film kept the subtle idiosyncrasies of the original Star Trek crew intact for a new generation.

Like the last film, Into Darkness does not hold anything back when it comes to special effects. The opening scene where the Enterprise is on a routine mission that nearly goes haywire is filled with all kinds of explosive CG and pulls no punches in trying to wow me right from the start. While there is still a solid amount of exposition throughout, Into Darkness is like the previous film with more emphasis on person-to-person action and more in-your-face dogfights. There is a very snazzy warp speed encounter I never saw before in a Star Trek film was quite dazzling, and there is also a gripping ship-to-ship space jump scene with Harrison and Kirk, one that looks ten times as better and has more gratifying results than the unfortunate one that transpired in another sci-fi flick, Sunshine.

Minor plot details in this paragraph too, so reader beware! If it was not for the disappointing non-definitive ending, Into Darkness would have been right on equal footing with the last film. I still like how they paid homage in one of the classic scenes towards the end of The Wrath of Khan, but with a little bit of a fresh twist I did not see coming this time around, but then Paramount unfortunately kind of weaseled out of it with their own version of "remember," but this one is more of a gut-wrenching copout than compared to how well done it was in The Wrath of Khan. That complaint aside, the journey there is absolutely fantastic and it made its two hour run time fly by before I knew it.

I was almost expecting another set of several hours worth of extra features as with all the other Star Trek films I covered, but was simultaneously relieved and disappointed that was not the case with Into Darkness. Maybe there was another release day special edition I missed out on, but the BluRay I have only has several behind-the-scenes features totaling just under 45 minutes. No commentaries, no deleted scenes. I really wish there was at least a commentary since the one the five guys from Bad Robot recorded for the previous Star Trek reboot was probably the most enjoyable of all of them. The behind-the-scenes features are all quick watches around eight minutes long apiece, and covers the making of some of the more CG intensive scenes of the film and gives special looks into the Klingons and Khan for this alternate universe. I will give you a pass this time Paramount for easing up on the extras, since it was a nice breather from dedicating several hours a month to the plethora of extras on all the previous films.

If 2009's Star Trek reboot film won you over, then Into Darkness is required viewing. As I stated above, the final act loses a step or two which ultimately makes it a slightly inferior film, but there is still so much masterfully crafted action, moments and plenty of throwback references to The Wrath of Kahn to keep you delighted most of the ways through.

With that said, I have now completed my goal of watching and blogging about all twelve Star Trek movies within a year. I probably will not be going to a convention anytime soon, but I have a whole new appreciation for Star Trek now than I did a year ago. If you look below, I have rated each Star Trek film from one to ten. The Wrath of Khan and the Star Trek reboot reign supreme as the only two to get perfect scores from me. Nemesis ranks just under those two with it being my only film getting a 9.5 score, and then The Voyage Home, First Contact and Into Darkness all tie with 9 out of 10 scores. If you only had to watch half of the Star Trek films available, those are the go to flicks. The only two that are skip-worthy are The Motion Picture and The Final Frontier.

Where do I go from here? I do not have the time to invest in watching every episode of every television series, but a few days ago on Twitter, I recently stumbled across a article referencing the top 40 episodes of The Next Generation I think I will commit to. If I manage to get past that I think I will try and attempt to hunt down similar references for the top episodes from Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise. Thank you all for sticking with me on this journey throughout the year, and feel free to comment below on your favorite Star Trek movies or shoot me a line on Twitter @gruel.

Star Trek Film Ratings

Star Trek: The Motion Picture - 5.5/10
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan - 10/10
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock - 7.5/10
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home - 9/10
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier - 6.5/10
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country - 7.5/10
Star Trek VII: Generations - 8/10
Star Trek VIII: First Contact - 9/10
Star Trek IX: Insurrection - 8/10
Star Trek X: Nemesis - 9.5/10
Star Trek (XI, 2009) - 10/10
Star Trek XII: Into Darkness - 9/10

Additional Star Trek Blogs

Star Trek Evolutions and Captains Summit BluRay Bonus Discs