RWBY - The Hindenburg on which Rooster Teeth rests its hopes, dreams and future

[Jewelsmakerguy]

I don't know RvB all that well, but Miles wasn't head writer for RvB until season 11 - and the "old" RvB writer/creator is alive and well and is one of the most powerful people in the company. It's also a comedy set in a semi-established universe.

Compare that to RWBY - which is a much looser concept, Miles is given control much earlier (Season 3-4), on top of shorter episodes, and the creator/writer unexpectedly dies at age 33.

Basically, Miles has much more to control on RWBY and has no direction or oversight from Monty (who is dead). He can't really fuck up RvB too bad because it's gone on for too long and the company's founder created it and is still with the company; meaning if he fucks around with it too hard he could find himself replaced.



The budget for all of RT's productions are pretty low, considering how much they're trying to save by having staff perform multiple roles. It seems like everyone in the company is a Voice Actor for at least 2 RT projects, in addition to doing 2 other RT roles (hosting, podcasting, con staffing, marketing, etc). A lot of the RWBY voice cast is RT staff, with the second largest group being cameos (Jessica Nigri, Garrett Hunter, etc) and a few, actual professional VAs mixed in sparingly.

I meant more like the exact budget. I'm guessing at most around $100,000 per episode, which is pretty low for what they're trying to accomplish. If it were as high as something like Clone Wars or even that Green Lantern cartoon from some time back ($1 mil), then that would be astonishing, conisdering how sub-standard it looks.

 

[Foolish Samurai Warrior]

I don't know RvB all that well, but Miles wasn't head writer for RvB until season 11 - and the "old" RvB writer/creator is alive and well and is one of the most powerful people in the company. It's also a comedy set in a semi-established universe.

Burnie isn't in creative stuff anymore though. As far as I know, the old guard of RvB don't really work on content anymore.

 

[Dumpster dived waifu]

Burnie isn't in creative stuff anymore though. As far as I know, the old guard of RvB don't really work on content anymore.

Most of them just appear in shit, collect a paycheck and go home.

 

[The Sauce Boss]

Okay, I just caught up with this thread.

Stop sucking Monty's dick. He was an excellent animator, one of the best of his time period, but the fact is, he was an absolute garbage storyteller. He couldn't really create a story, by his own admission, which is why he had Miles and Kerry around. Burnie and some of the older guard of RT's writing staff were not only good writers, they were also idea guys. They could handle the strain of building a world, and then creating a cohesive story from it.

Miles and Kerry aren't necessarily bad writers. At worst, I'd say they're mediocre (though that's also the best I'd give them.) To make an analogy, they were brought in to help take care of a child that bore no outward defect, but was sickly and weak. Then, that child's father died, and now they're forced to raise this kid that isn't even their own. It's a wonder the show's narrative has the barest semblance of cohesion at this point.

I'm just ready for it to end so that the decent members of the fan community can get to writing that good shit that outclasses the show on every single level.

 

[Roland Daggett]

Okay, I just caught up with this thread.

Stop sucking Monty's dick. He was an excellent animator, one of the best of his time period, but the fact is, he was an absolute garbage storyteller. He couldn't really create a story, by his own admission, which is why he had Miles and Kerry around. Burnie and some of the older guard of RT's writing staff were not only good writers, they were also idea guys. They could handle the strain of building a world, and then creating a cohesive story from it.

Miles and Kerry aren't necessarily bad writers. At worst, I'd say they're mediocre (though that's also the best I'd give them.) To make an analogy, they were brought in to help take care of a child that bore no outward defect, but was sickly and weak. Then, that child's father died, and now they're forced to raise this kid that isn't even their own. It's a wonder the show's narrative has the barest semblance of cohesion at this point.

I'm just ready for it to end so that the decent members of the fan community can get to writing that good shit that outclasses the show on every single level.

I don't believe anyone was sucking Monty's dick. In fact most of us seem to agree writing was what Monty was weakest at, but he was still better than Miles and Kerry who have shown themselves to be insanely incompetent. Miles and Kerry are alright if they have someone else coming up with the story or if all they have to do is comedy, but as storytellers they are woefully inept. Monty had a vision for RWBY, but the main issue is that he needed a good writer to help guide him and keep him from falling into bad writing pitfalls.

But yes I agree that I'm waiting for RWBY to just die so we can focus more on people's rewrites. Most fan rewrites I've seen are much better than anything we've gotten from the actual show in years.

 

[Dumpster dived waifu]

Okay, I just caught up with this thread.

Stop sucking Monty's dick. He was an excellent animator, one of the best of his time period, but the fact is, he was an absolute garbage storyteller. He couldn't really create a story, by his own admission, which is why he had Miles and Kerry around. Burnie and some of the older guard of RT's writing staff were not only good writers, they were also idea guys. They could handle the strain of building a world, and then creating a cohesive story from it.

Miles and Kerry aren't necessarily bad writers. At worst, I'd say they're mediocre (though that's also the best I'd give them.) To make an analogy, they were brought in to help take care of a child that bore no outward defect, but was sickly and weak. Then, that child's father died, and now they're forced to raise this kid that isn't even their own. It's a wonder the show's narrative has the barest semblance of cohesion at this point.

I'm just ready for it to end so that the decent members of the fan community can get to writing that good shit that outclasses the show on every single level.

The problem with Miles and Kerry isn't so much that people want fantastic writers and their writing is dog shit, but that they refuse all criticism. Hell, if they accepted some of the criticism they've been getting, they could work on it and RWBY might improve.

But fuck you and everyone else for not thinking RWBY is a 15/10 series worthy of being in a museum.

This rant has reminded me that they used to (don't know if they still do, because fuck following RT) had a fucking weekly series huffing their own farts similar to what the Walking Dead or Dr Who got.

 

[The Sauce Boss]

This rant has reminded me that they used to (don't know if they still do, because fuck following RT) had a fucking weekly series huffing their own farts similar to what the Walking Dead or Dr Who got.

They say the got rid of it due to time constraints, but honestly RWBY Rewind was only good for that one clip of Kerry confirming that Adam is dead, and I wouldn't be surprised if they got rid of it because it wasn't pulling the numbers they wanted.

I don't believe anyone was sucking Monty's dick. In fact most of us seem to agree writing was what Monty was weakest at, but he was still better than Miles and Kerry who have shown themselves to be insanely incompetent. Miles and Kerry are alright if they have someone else coming up with the story or if all they have to do is comedy, but as storytellers they are woefully inept. Monty had a vision for RWBY, but the main issue is that he needed a good writer to help guide him and keep him from falling into bad writing pitfalls.

But yes I agree that I'm waiting for RWBY to just die so we can focus more on people's rewrites. Most fan rewrites I've seen are much better than anything we've gotten from the actual show in years.

I should have clarified that I didn't mean specifically this thread. In general, the main sentiment of RWBY critics is always 'Monty this', 'Monty that', when Monty was part of the problem. He didn't break anything, mind, but he certainly didn't have all the tools in his toolkit necessary to keep this shit locked down.

I'm not even sure that we'd enjoy the series more if he were still around to create for it. I feel like the pitfalls Miles and Kerry are falling into are not just Miles and Kerry exclusive pitfalls, Monty didn't exactly avoid them either. The new writers certainly don't seem to want to help that much.

I've actually never seen a fan rewrite that I quite mesh with. If I did it, I'd try to just fill in the plot holes and nonsensical elements of the actual show itself to make it better, but it seems the rewrite community is focused on radically changing the story into something that shills their favorite character.

 

[Roland Daggett]

The problem with Miles and Kerry isn't so much that people want fantastic writers and their writing is dog shit, but that they refuse all criticism. Hell, if they accepted some of the criticism they've been getting, they could work on it and RWBY might improve.

This is the reason why they never improve. Any writer needs to accept criticism, and any writer worth their salt can parse through the criticism they've gotten and figure out what they need to listen to. I've written some stuff in the past and gotten other people to look it over and they pointed out issues in it. Some of the criticism was nonsense (like grammar nazi type stuff) and I've had criticism like having someone point out a plot hole I hadn't considered. If a writer doesn't do that and only accepts praise they're going to remain stagnant, or even backslide. You can see with how Miles has thrown fits about getting criticized that he spends way too long in his RT hugbox. I don't really blame the weaker writing from him when he started cause if I remember right he was basically thrown on RWBY as a writer. But after several years of writing he should be improving. He's been on the show for like 6 or 7 years now he should have been working to improve as a writer. He acts like he cares about writing but his attitude betrays it cause he doesn't like criticism, he doesn't make the effort to improve, and he attacks anyone who is not praising him. I really would have loved if he worked on his writing skills and tried his best to write something good, but sadly he seems to have gotten worse as a writer over the years. He HAS done some decent work back in the first couple Volumes of RWBY but his ego has gotten in the way.

I should have clarified that I didn't mean specifically this thread. In general, the main sentiment of RWBY critics is always 'Monty this', 'Monty that', when Monty was part of the problem. He didn't break anything, mind, but he certainly didn't have all the tools in his toolkit necessary to keep this shit locked down.

I'm not even sure that we'd enjoy the series more if he were still around to create for it. I feel like the pitfalls Miles and Kerry are falling into are not just Miles and Kerry exclusive pitfalls. The new writers certainly don't seem to want to help that much.

I've actually never seen a fan rewrite that I quite mesh with. If I did it, I'd try to just fill in the plot holes and nonsensical elements of the actual show itself to make it better, but it seems the rewrite community is focused on radically changing the story into something that shills their favorite character.

Oh I gotcha. Yeah there are some people who do think that Monty was a god at everything and need to reevaluate things. Monty was a god at fight scenes and he had some really cool ideas, but I'd say he was more small scale in his writing. In that he had a very clear idea of immediate things but only vague ideas of the bigger story. That's where he really fell short as a writer, and as far as I know he admitted himself that writing was what he needed the most help with. I could be wrong but I believe he was the one who requested more writers.

Some bad ideas were from Monty, like killing off Pyrrha, but that's something he needed a better writer to stop him and keep him focused on writing a tight story. There's a good chance that had Monty never died RWBY still could have gone downhill, but sadly we'll never really know. He could have changed his mind on things that didn't work, but he sadly died before Volume 3 was anywhere close to finished. I think at least Monty would have been more consistent with the story, if a bit underbaked with the lore and worldbuilding, and I know for sure the fight scenes would have remained good.

I've found numerous fan rewrites and it runs the gamut from meh to great. Some people try to take existing plots and fix them, or just scrap massive amounts of the show and start over. A lot of it is better than what the show is now. I try to avoid rewrites that involve either shilling a character/ship. Those are just weird fanfictions. But there are several people I've seen who actually have made an effort and tried to make good on RWBY's potential. I wish I wrote down all of them cause I can't remember most of them.

 

[The Sauce Boss]

Oh I gotcha. Yeah there are some people who do think that Monty was a god at everything and need to reevaluate things. Monty was a god at fight scenes and he had some really cool ideas, but I'd say he was more small scale in his writing. In that he had a very clear idea of immediate things but only vague ideas of the bigger story. That's where he really fell short as a writer, and as far as I know he admitted himself that writing was what he needed the most help with. I could be wrong but I believe he was the one who requested more writers.

Some bad ideas were from Monty, like killing off Pyrrha, but that's something he needed a better writer to stop him and keep him focused on writing a tight story. There's a good chance that had Monty never died RWBY still could have gone downhill, but sadly we'll never really know. He could have changed his mind on things that didn't work, but he sadly died before Volume 3 was anywhere close to finished. I think at least Monty would have been more consistent with the story, if a bit underbaked with the lore and worldbuilding, and I know for sure the fight scenes would have remained good.

I've found numerous fan rewrites and it runs the gamut from meh to great. Some people try to take existing plots and fix them, or just scrap massive amounts of the show and start over. A lot of it is better than what the show is now. I try to avoid rewrites that involve either shilling a character/ship. Those are just weird fanfictions. But there are several people I've seen who actually have made an effort and tried to make good on RWBY's potential. I wish I wrote down all of them cause I can't remember most of them.

Literally called out my favorite rewrite idea. Invincible girl has to cope with the realization that she is not invincible, and she is very, very small in the grand scheme of things.

I do think that the new season actually isn't that bad. I feel like they've gone slightly uphill from the days of Volume 5, but there are still some things I'm not fond of. The heavy-handedness of Bumblebee at the moment (I was expecting a bit of subtlety), the apparent pigeonholing of Ironwood into villainy despite the fact he, quite literally, has done nothing wrong, a couple of other things here and there. Funny enough, all of the things I'm happy about with the show are on episodes with the new writing team. I hope that they can make up for Miles' deficiencies, and if they can't, I hope Miles goes on an ego trip that costs him his job. I hate Jaune's voice anyway.

All the rewrites I've seen are made by self-professed Vic stans, and all... are really out there and whacky as fuck. Not a fan.

I believe that Monty would have eventually had to step away from the IP eventually, at the rate he was going during V2. He was practically working himself to death, and at a certain point, if the Crunchpocalypse still happened as it has in the real world, the company would have been hypersensitive towards that sort of thing. We'd have probably seen Monty taking more of a supervisory, less work-intensive role.

 

[Roland Daggett]

Literally called out my favorite rewrite idea. Invincible girl has to cope with the realization that she is not invincible, and she is very, very small in the grand scheme of things.

I do think that the new season actually isn't that bad. I feel like they've gone slightly uphill from the days of Volume 5, but there are still some things I'm not fond of. The heavy-handedness of Bumblebee at the moment (I was expecting a bit of subtlety), the apparent pigeonholing of Ironwood into villainy despite the fact he, quite literally, has done nothing wrong, a couple of other things here and there. Funny enough, all of the things I'm happy about with the show are on episodes with the new writing team. I hope that they can make up for Miles' deficiencies, and if they can't, I hope Miles goes on an ego trip that costs him his job. I hate Jaune's voice anyway.

All the rewrites I've seen are made by self-professed Vic stans, and all... are really out there and whacky as fuck. Not a fan.

I believe that Monty would have eventually had to step away from the IP eventually, at the rate he was going during V2. He was practically working himself to death, and at a certain point, if the Crunchpocalypse still happened as it has in the real world, the company would have been hypersensitive towards that sort of thing. We'd have probably seen Monty taking more of a supervisory, less work-intensive role.

Here's the funny thing about Pyrrha. She never saw herself as invincible. In Volume 2 she literally tells Jaune she hates being put on a pedestal over other people and treated like some goddess. She was very humble and kind and really just wanted to become a Huntress to help people and have some normal relationships for once in her life. I always found it odd that they tried to act like Pyrrha needed to be knocked down for some reason. She admitted she was already lonely and miserable before she came to Beacon.

I mean really if you ask me RWBY has already passed the point of no return. Even if some things improve it will never be good again. I decided to check out a bit of Volume 7 and wow it's still really awful. And now after the main characters threw such a hissy fit about Ozpin not telling them everything they're keeping secrets and lying to Ironwood treating him like a villain, and then trying to justify why they're hypocritically doing the thing they hated Ozpin for. And then you have Penny being thrown back in for cheap pandering just like Neo in Volume 6 cause they're desperate for people to come back.

As far as people who do rewrites go I can't say what any of their thoughts on Vic are but the issues that I tend to find in the ones I'm not a fan of are usually more from people who try to either fix the wrong things, don't think the story out properly, or they have specific biases towards a character that hamper their story.

 

[The Sauce Boss]

Here's the funny thing about Pyrrha. She never saw herself as invincible. In Volume 2 she literally tells Jaune she hates being put on a pedestal over other people and treated like some goddess. She was very humble and kind and really just wanted to become a Huntress to help people and have some normal relationships for once in her life. I always found it odd that they tried to act like Pyrrha needed to be knocked down for some reason. She admitted she was already lonely and miserable before she came to Beacon.

I mean really if you ask me RWBY has already passed the point of no return. Even if some things improve it will never be good again. I decided to check out a bit of Volume 7 and wow it's still really awful. And now after the main characters threw such a hissy fit about Ozpin not telling them everything they're keeping secrets and lying to Ironwood treating him like a villain, and then trying to justify why they're hypocritically doing the thing they hated Ozpin for. And then you have Penny being thrown back in for cheap pandering just like Neo in Volume 6 cause they're desperate for people to come back.

As far as people who do rewrites go I can't say what any of their thoughts on Vic are but the issues that I tend to find in the ones I'm not a fan of are usually more from people who try to either fix the wrong things, don't think the story out properly, or they have specific biases towards a character that hamper their story.

I don't feel like them lying to Ironwood is a problem at all. I feel like it's necessary, to show that the world is not as black and white as Ruby and co might want to think it is. People make hypocritical decisions all the time in real life. I feel like being angry at this is extremely nitpicky, but that is just me.

I guess the best excuse I can give for Pyrrhamageddon is that they needed to establish the Worf Effect.

On the subject of Penny, yeah, I agree with you. To quote many a person in the community, the whole thing was 'wasted potential'. Penny seemed to have no repercussions to her death. Whereas all of the dead characters in the series thus far, be they background or actual in-series characters (Pyrrha, Torchwick, Summer, Amber, Gretchen) all either served the plot or affected one of the other characters in a meaningful way, Penny sorta just reappears with a few upgrades and absolutely no mental scars from quite literally dying. It felt cheap, and I do agree that it was an attempt to buy back goodwill.

I do agree that RWBY will never be great. It peaked at the end of V2. It sucks, but I'm on this train to the end of the line, bitching as I might be.

 

[HumanHive]

I actually like this new volume, probably the most consistently good RWBY has been since V3. New character designs are hot garbage, though, so monkey's paw is in full effect.

 

[Roland Daggett]

I don't feel like them lying to Ironwood is a problem at all. I feel like it's necessary, to show that the world is not as black and white as Ruby and co might want to think it is. People make hypocritical decisions all the time in real life. I feel like being angry at this is extremely nitpicky, but that is just me.

I guess the best excuse I can give for Pyrrhamageddon is that they needed to establish the Worf Effect.

On the subject of Penny, yeah, I agree with you. To quote many a person in the community, the whole thing was 'wasted potential'. Penny seemed to have no repercussions to her death. Whereas all of the dead characters in the series thus far, be they background or actual in-series characters (Pyrrha, Torchwick, Summer, Amber, Gretchen) all either served the plot or affected one of the other characters in a meaningful way, Penny sorta just reappears with a few upgrades and absolutely no mental scars from quite literally dying. It felt cheap, and I do agree that it was an attempt to buy back goodwill.

I do agree that RWBY will never be great. It peaked at the end of V2. It sucks, but I'm on this train to the end of the line, bitching as I might be.

The way they're handling Penny is especially awful cause they tried SO HARD to make Penny's death this uber emotional scene that's super dark and grim. They tried to act like there was nothing they could do (despite the fact that she's a robot and she was still pretty intact she could easily have been rebuilt) and spent years acting like it was this huge big thing. Then they suddenly thrown everything in the trash and bring her back with gags and comedy. They could have done that back in Volume 4 right after Volume 3 and it would have been fine. Just say that she was rebuilt. In fact she could have been around for Weiss's arc in Atlas so Weiss had someone to have some actually decent interactions with. But with how they waited so long and then suddenly bring her back it's so transparent why. They know things aren't going well for the show so they're bringing back popular characters, even ones they treated as dead, just for hype. I'm just waiting for them to get desperate enough to just resurrect Pyrrha

And with Pyrrha she was already shown to not be the strongest. Mercury gave her a run for her money in Volume 2, and in Volume 3 Nora completely outclasses her in the first round of the tournament by soloing the entire enemy team, then they had Qrow say that her team was useless without her which baffled me. Worfing a character is bad writing and makes it impossible to take a character seriously in a fight cause they'll always lose to show a villain is strong.

My issue with them lying to Ironwood is that the show wanted us to think that Ozpin lying/omitting things was a horrid and wrong thing to do, then they want to act like Ruby lying to Ironwood for no reason is justified. If it was played off as something wrong that really showed her being hypocritical it would have been better, but I don't trust Miles enough to think that's what they intend. Ironwood is a character we like and until now we had no reason to see him as a villain... until they writers want him to be seen as untrustworthy. It's haphazard at best and makes the main characters we're supposed to like come off as idiotic and selfish, yet the story doesn't treat it like that.

And I'm glad to see someone else who agrees it peaked in Volume 2.

 

[AverageAnimeWatcher]

Miles and Kerry aren't necessarily bad writers. At worst, I'd say they're mediocre (though that's also the best I'd give them.) To make an analogy, they were brought in to help take care of a child that bore no outward defect, but was sickly and weak. Then, that child's father died, and now they're forced to raise this kid that isn't even their own. It's a wonder the show's narrative has the barest semblance of cohesion at this point.

You make some very good points, but this is the only point I disagree with. I don't think Monty's death is an excuse for the abysmal writing. Really any competent writers could've to lead the show in a good direction even without Monty.

When Monty died there wasn't much plot, to begin with, that could be ruined, and in fact, I would say the first 3 volumes that Monty was involved were mostly world-building and set up. They could've taken the plot in any direction without any issue, really.

The only example I can think of would be the W.I.T.C.H animated series. The first season was mediocre and forgettable, and Disney fired the writers. In the second season, Greg Weisman picks up after the orphaned child and he creates the fan-favorite season 2 which is considered a vast improvement.

Comic books have this happening all the time aswell.

That is to say, any competent writer can continue after another without any issue.

 

[Roland Daggett]

You make some very good points, but this is the only point I disagree with. I don't think Monty's dead is an excuse for the abysmal writing. Really any competent writers could've to lead the show in a good direction even without Monty.

When Monty died there wasn't much plot, to begin with, that could be ruined, and in fact I would say the first 3 volumes that Monty was involved were mostly world-building and set up. They could've taken the plot in any direction without any issue, really.

The only example I can think of would be the W.I.T.C.H animated series. The first season was mediocre and forgettable, and Disney fired the writers. In the second season, Greg Weisman picks up after the orphaned child and he creates the fan-favorite season 2 which is considered a vast improvement.

That is to say, any competent writer can continue after another without any issue.

I'm gonna second this. It doesn't matter if the show didn't turn out exactly how Monty would have done it, but as long as the writing was good the show would be good. You could take the show in many different directions from where he left off and make it great. It just takes a good writer.

 

[The Sauce Boss]

You make some very good points, but this is the only point I disagree with. I don't think Monty's death is an excuse for the abysmal writing. Really any competent writers could've to lead the show in a good direction even without Monty.

When Monty died there wasn't much plot, to begin with, that could be ruined, and in fact, I would say the first 3 volumes that Monty was involved were mostly world-building and set up. They could've taken the plot in any direction without any issue, really.

The only example I can think of would be the W.I.T.C.H animated series. The first season was mediocre and forgettable, and Disney fired the writers. In the second season, Greg Weisman picks up after the orphaned child and he creates the fan-favorite season 2 which is considered a vast improvement.

Comic books have this happening all the time aswell.

That is to say, any competent writer can continue after another without any issue.

From my understanding, Monty had plans, however concrete and fleshed out, up until about the point we're at now. I don't know how faithful Miles and Kerry are being to those plans, but I maintain my point based on the quality of what we're seeing now.

I'm just waiting for them to get desperate enough to just resurrect Pyrrha

Please, God, no. No. NO. They FINALLY stopped milking her death for Jaune Angst, please god don't do this to me.

I've heard a bunch of people saying that they think that's what the Relic of Creation is gonna get used for (TLDR giving Atlas a 'living sentinel' for the Amity Arena- you know, something they could have used PENNY for.).

 

[Roland Daggett]

From my understanding, Monty had plans, however concrete and fleshed out, up until about the point we're at now. I don't know how faithful Miles and Kerry are being to those plans, but I maintain my point based on the quality of what we're seeing now.




Please, God, no. No. NO. They FINALLY stopped jerking off her death for Jaune Angst, please god don't do this to me.

I've heard a bunch of people saying that they think that's what the Relic of Creation is gonna get used for (TLDR giving Atlas a 'living sentinel' for the Amity Arena- you know, something they could have used PENNY for.).

I've said this before but I do not in any way believe that Miles followed any notes Monty had, if Monty had them at all. Monty was very much a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants type writer who didn't have concrete outlines for the show. Monty had some ideas of what he wanted to happen but he was not the kind of person to write out detailed plans for years to come. I heard a claim a while back that Monty supposedly wrote out 10 Volumes worth of stories and Miles just followed everything to the letter, which definitely isn't true considering much of the story is based on things that Miles himself bragged about being the one to come up with (basically anything related to the Gods is all Miles). I'm sure the claim that Miles is just following Monty's notes was just something to try to assure fans that things are "All according to plan" and it gives an out when someone asks about the writing. They can just say "Hey we're following what Monty did!". From what Shane said in his letter it sounded like they hated what Monty wanted, particularly the part where Yang met Raven at the end of Volume 2, which he said Monty fought tooth and nail to keep in. Then in Volume 3 that scene goes completely unmentioned even when Yang talks to Qrow about Raven. Even if it was supposedly a dream it's odd that a scene Monty fought to keep in was effectively retconned out of existence.

They COULD have included Penny in Amity Arena but that would make sense. Honestly if I had a nickel for every time someone pointed out something RT could have done better with RWBY I'd have enough money to buy RT.

 

[The Sauce Boss]

I've said this before but I do not in any way believe that Miles followed any notes Monty had, if Monty had them at all. Monty was very much a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants type writer who didn't have concrete outlines for the show. Monty had some ideas of what he wanted to happen but he was not the kind of person to write out detailed plans for years to come. I heard a claim a while back that Monty supposedly wrote out 10 Volumes worth of stories and Miles just followed everything to the letter, which definitely isn't true considering much of the story is based on things that Miles himself bragged about being the one to come up with (basically anything related to the Gods is all Miles). I'm sure the claim that Miles is just following Monty's notes was just something to try to assure fans that things are "All according to plan" and it gives an out when someone asks about the writing. They can just say "Hey we're following what Monty did!". From what Shane said in his letter it sounded like they hated what Monty wanted, particularly the part where Yang met Raven at the end of Volume 2, which he said Monty fought tooth and nail to keep in. Then in Volume 3 that scene goes completely unmentioned even when Yang talks to Qrow about Raven. Even if it was supposedly a dream it's odd that a scene Monty fought to keep in was effectively retconned out of existence.

They COULD have included Penny in Amity Arena but that would make sense. Honestly if I had a nickel for every time someone pointed out something RT could have done better with RWBY I'd have enough money to buy RT.

I'll admit, I prefer to ignore Miles. This is certainly interesting. Thanks for the new information, my man.

 

[LordBaron]

The budget for all of RT's productions are pretty low, considering how much they're trying to save by having staff perform multiple roles. It seems like everyone in the company is a Voice Actor for at least 2 RT projects, in addition to doing 2 other RT roles (hosting, podcasting, con staffing, marketing, etc). A lot of the RWBY voice cast is RT staff, with the second largest group being cameos (Jessica Nigri, Garrett Hunter, etc) and a few, actual professional VAs mixed in sparingly.

You can tell the budget is paper thin when they outright refuse to do fight scenes and instead show standing and talking.

 

[Tanner Glass]

Burnie isn't in creative stuff anymore though. As far as I know, the old guard of RvB don't really work on content anymore.

I think he's moved over to the production company/studio, away from animation, but he's still working there and is still like 5 or 6 corporate tiers above Miles as well as a founder of the company, so if Miles shits the bed with RvB - Burnie absolutely can and will make noise about it.

I should have clarified that I didn't mean specifically this thread. In general, the main sentiment of RWBY critics is always 'Monty this', 'Monty that', when Monty was part of the problem. He didn't break anything, mind, but he certainly didn't have all the tools in his toolkit necessary to keep this shit locked down.

I'm not even sure that we'd enjoy the series more if he were still around to create for it. I feel like the pitfalls Miles and Kerry are falling into are not just Miles and Kerry exclusive pitfalls, Monty didn't exactly avoid them either. The new writers certainly don't seem to want to help that much.

I've actually never seen a fan rewrite that I quite mesh with. If I did it, I'd try to just fill in the plot holes and nonsensical elements of the actual show itself to make it better, but it seems the rewrite community is focused on radically changing the story into something that shills their favorite character.

I'm not a writing expert, but I feel like the Miles/Kerry pitfalls are exclusive to them just because of who they are. For me it's really night and day between Monty's contributions and what happens when he's gone.

To be quite plain, while Monty wasn't an amazing writer, he wasn't a bad one and a lot of the cooler and more subtle aspects of RWBY can be attributed to him (the initial worldbuilding, the hunter/weapon lore, etc), as well as the clear focus on detailed fight scenes and a sense of scope and budget. I feel like RWBY, were Monty still alive, would have been a better show, but smaller in scope.

Miles/Kerry, though, are any responsible for any scene in RWBY I've watched and felt embarrassed by - which is usually awkward heavy handed bullshit. Here's a small list of things I don't think you get if Monty was still alive (just from the top of my head)

- Yang and Blake kill Adam Taurus, the first human life either of them have taken. The Monty version would not have out-of-place "bumblebee" hand holding shit during the "holy shit we killed a guy" scene.
- RWBY lands in Atlas, after several dangerous encounters. Yang would not gush and blush about Blake's new haircut.
- There would be no heavy handed "colonial privilege" symbolism between Weiss and Blake. Certainly not after they already ended the Faunas arc.
- Qrow (who is possibly Ruby's actual father) wouldn't say things to Ruby like "Your mother was a brat, but I like brats".
- A robot that was treated like a person is killed in a somewhat gruesome fashion and all of the characters feel sadness and guilt about it. The robot was (unsurprisingly) rebuilt and is now a suprise character again, complete with jokes and gags.
- and so on.

The main reason, I think, that people look back fondly on Monty is very simply because while RWBY was never the best show ever made but when Monty was alive it never was cringe worthy. It's hard to watch several characters he setup (Glenda, Ozpin, Ironwood, Adam) who had potential just be kind of wasted by mediocre writing.