RWBY: Volume 3 Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.0

RWBY: Volume 3 Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 3, 2016

If I were a talented and (extremely) computer savvy 20- or 30-something, I think I would storm the battlements of Rooster Teeth Productions and demand (or at least ask politely) that they hire me. From both the supplemental features included on RWBY: Volume 3, as well as the brief quasi-trailer documenting the shenanigans of some of the Rooster Teeth employees, it looks like, well, a supercool place to work (20- and 30-somethings use “supercool”, right?). One of the things that’s immediately apparent in some of the supplemental material is the feeling of camaraderie between the forces that churn out appealing if kind of odd entries like Red vs. Blue: RVBX: Ten Years of Red vs. Blue. That may be due at least in part to the leadership of Rooster Teeth co-founder Burnie Burns, who has proven himself to be a cool, calm, collected and (perhaps most saliently) kind competitor on this season of The Amazing Race. But another indication of the wellspring of community that the Rooster Teeth folks quite obviously share comes courtesy of a tragedy which visited their offices in early 2015. RWBY was the brainchild of Monty Oum, a young and obviously fantastically talented guy who had been working on Red vs. Blue. Oum shepherded his idea through a rather quick start up process, even though some of his collaborators state clearly in interviews included on RWBY: Volume 3 that they really had no idea what they were doing. Even more intriguingly, evidently large swaths of RWBY sprang from a dream Oum had, which he regaled his coworkers with the day after he had dreamt it. The dream became something of an overwhelming reality for Rooster Teeth, as (again) several interviews indicate. It’s probably no secret that Rooster Teeth’s main fanbase had been younger males drawn to the machinima escapades culled from Halo for Red vs. Blue (if you’re not up to speed on this phenomenon, there’s some information in my Red vs. Blue: RVBX: Ten Years of Red vs. Blue Blu-ray review). Suddenly, Rooster Teeth was attracting new demographics, including younger females who were drawn to RWBY’s quartet of women protagonists. But in January 2015, Oum apparently had a severe allergic reaction to some kind of medical procedure (details are a little sketchy, at least from what I’ve been able to ferret out), and shockingly went from comatose to eventual death in just a matter of a few days. He was only 33 and must have left a gaping hole in the hearts of several of his Rooster Teeth friends (not to mention his fans). RWBY: Volume 3 contains both overt and hidden homages to Oum, all of which help to illustrate the fantastic sense of community that Rooster Teeth Productions evidently fosters.

Reviews of the two previous volumes of RWBY can be accessed via the following links:

RWBY: Volume 1 Blu-ray review

RWBY: Volume 2 Blu-ray review

It’s probably no mere coincidence that this volume of RWBY starts at a grave, as Ruby “converses” with her deceased Mother before heading off to the Vytal Festival Tournament. (According to some online data, one of the “hidden” homages to Oum is contained in the flight of birds in this scene. Those interested can do a bit of internet sleuthing to uncover the meaning of this image.) Quite a bit of this volume of RWBY in fact ends up playing like battle based anime of old, and so may very well appeal to lovers of fare like Pokémon: The Movies 1-3 Collection: Pokémon: The First Movie / Pokémon: The Movie 2000 / Pokémon 3: The Movie , Dragon Ball Z: Season 1 and/or Yu-Gi-Oh!. The whole Vytal Festival Tournament is more than a bit reminiscent of big battle arenas that populate some of those aforementioned anime from an earlier time and will therefore be perhaps a bit nostalgic feeling for older viewers.

And in fact it’s that tournament setting that turns out to be at least a partial distraction for RWBY developing its characters more fully in this third set of episodes. There are a number of sidebars that accrue throughout various episodes, but they amount mostly to vignette status, simply getting one (or more) of the girls in some kind of predicament, only to have a solution more or less magically appear just in the knick of time. Speaking of magic, the whole Grimm subplot is curiously underserved at least some of the time in this volume, though it does erupt into the tournament play at a couple of junctures. In fact, several of the show’s more mythological elements seem occasionally shunted to the background here in favor of more traditional combat storylines.

The show has become more assured from a design aesthetic, and its unusual blend of anime tropes in more of a videogame visual ambience is one of its most winning characteristics. It’s understandable that parts of RWBY feel a little disjointed this season, given the events surrounding Oum’s incredibly untimely passing. But as Ruby, Weiss, Blake and Yang repeatedly prove themselves, no obstacle is insurmountable, and the show (and/or battle) must go on.

RWBY: Volume 3 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

RWBY: Volume 3 is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cinedigm with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. Unlike the first two seasons of RWBY which featured interlaced presentations, the progressive presentation here definitely helps to smooth out some of the (figurative and literal) rough edges of the animation, though RWBY still has the often sharp-edged ambience of a typical video game. There are still slight video rolling issues that never quite tip over into stair stepping, but things look much more consistent this season. Once again, the series' incredibly lush palette is one of its most alluring features, and the vividness of the hues throughout this set of episodes is often quite inviting. Line detail is generally strong and consistent, but again tends to flirt with resolution issues on occasion. The only other occasional issue is some noticeable banding in lighter gradients, something that tends to accrue in some of the more over the top effects sequences.

RWBY: Volume 3 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

RWBY: Volume 3 continues the odd decision of offering only lossy audio on its Blu-ray releases, with a Dolby Digital 5.1 track providing decent and in fact at times rather commendable immersion, but still lacking some of the "oomph", especially in the lower registers, that a lossless track probably would have offered. Once again, dialogue, effects and a rather evocative score are offered with excellent fidelity and good prioritization, but the lack of lossless audio continues to be a head scratcher from a studio which prides itself on its high tech proclivities.

RWBY: Volume 3 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentaries:

  Director's Commentary features Kerry Shawcross, Miles Luna, Gray Haddock, and Koen Wooten.

  Cast Commentary features Lindsay Jones, Samantha Ireland, Kara Eberle, Barbara Dunkelman, and Miles Luna.

  Crew Commentary features Patrick Rodriguez, Erin Winn, Tim Reid, Robert Reynolds, David Levy, Dustin Mathews, and Harley Dwortz.

• 3, 2, 1. . .Begin! (1080p; 13:52) reviews some of the tournament combatants and storylines.


• No Heroes in the End (1080p; 13:48) discusses this volume's topsy turvy proclivities.


• Let's Make a Show: The Legacy of RWBY (1080p; 9:05)


• CRWBY Photos (1080p; 1:02) is a brief slideshow identifying the show's crew.


• RWBY: Volume 3 Trailer (1080p; 1:46)


• World of Remnant:

  The Vytal Festival Tournament (1080p; 2:22)

  Huntsmen (1080p; 2:21)

  The CCT System (1080p; 2:52)

  The Four Maidens (1080p; 6:47)

Note: Considering the fact that Rooster Teeth Productions is such a bastion of high tech wonderment and knowledge, you'd think they'd author their Blu-ray discs a little more intuitively. The Extras Menu has a "Play All" link which in fact only plays the first five supplements (up to World of Remnant. Then, clicking on that World of Remnant choice takes you to another submenu with another Play All option for all of those featurettes. Even more confoundingly, the commentaries are all under Setup and are only accessible there. In other words, there's no way to toggle between audio tracks on this disc (at least that I was able to discern). We'll get into the whole lossy audio situation at some other date.

RWBY: Volume 3 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Maybe that aforementioned nostalgia played into my response to this set of RWBY episodes, for despite some halting character development, I actually preferred this season's tendency to focus on arena battles to some of what occurred last season. There is still a slightly lurching quality to the series, without enough of an organic feeling knitting together various vignettes, but the show continues to be quite a sumptuous viewing experience. Audiophiles will no doubt grouse about the lossy Dolby Digital track, but otherwise technical merits are solid. Recommended.