metawatts

[metawatts]

Screw it, I'm petty. Mostly Book Accurate Theo colour picked from his own outfit. Proof below:

That was Headmaster Theodore: He put everything out there. He had clearly worked hard to get his body into peak physical condition, and he wanted to show it off. A flowing gray-blue cape, the color of a stormy sky, was clasped around his shoulders with a silver chain. He had a silver belt with a round buckle, matching his boots, and bright white slacks with deep side pockets, all carefully orchestrated to draw even more attention to himself.

[metawatts]

My favourite part of the movie is when they arrive at 'The Docks', and Blake and Weiss comment on how they now understand why Batman is the way he is and why he wanted to get away from Gotham because of how bad it looks. All while their surroundings look as generic and vaguely futuristic as most of RWBY's 'normal' environments. I get that they didn't want to waste budget on making Gotham look like a gothic, depressing cancer of a city; but then maybe don't have characters talk about the environment that clearly isn't there?

No this was so funny/infuriating because the docks of Gotham in this film literally look like downtown Vale just slightly overcast. It reminds me of some of the problems people get when adapting Batman, such as The Dark Knight trilogy basically having Gotham look generally normal, meanwhle the animated series and the recent Battinsom film actually looked like a capitalist ubergoth nightmare neck deep in corruption and lead poisoning built on top of like, a half dozen Miscellaneous Evils with room for sewer cults, a lazarus pit, and probably an emo cthulu somewhere down there. And the worst thing?

Instead we get Blake literally seeing a copy of the city she went to college-school at and going 'oh wow this place is a trashfire'.

And it didn't even look that bad? I mean- it was just your standard warehouse district/docklands, surprisingly underpopulated by workers, but what have you. I guess we can't all grow up in a mansion on a tropical paradise island.

But yeah Blake and her Privileged Bullshittery was unironically the worst part of this movie unquestionably (Yang came in at a close second it's pretty neck and neck). At least Weiss got some sort of cosmic comeuppance for a minute with having to deal with no powers, the most interesting a rwby character's been in yonks. Blake just sucks now.

And another final thing this is the last thing for real: hilarious how they 'don't want to waste budget' but then made models for Joker and Harley, just saying.

[metawatts]

Hi! Have you seen part two of the JL/RWBY crossover movies? If you did see it, what are thoughts about it?

Yes, I have seen this movie, and I do plan on doing a full review the same as I did for the last one. I'm currently just busy catching up on some other projects for work and such.

But don't worry! I hated it! It's a bad movie for an entirely different reason to the first one. General rundown: what this movie lacks in eye-grating love triangles and rightfully panned teenage batman "characterisation", it makes up for in Team RWBY being the worst people you ever met and some truly awful attempts at 'writing' that made my teeth itch.

Allow me to share some choice notes from my livereact, just as a snippet of my Horrified Thoughts.

and the one thing that really ground my gears that kept happening:

also just for funsies:

[metawatts]

Thanks for answering my question. That is regrettable to hear even though GL was still my favorite part of the movie. I guess it's kind of on brand because even the things I do like in RWBY are mired in terrible writing decisions. Out of curiosity what are your opinion on how much of the fandom seems to unironically this incarnation JC even going as far as making semi joking comments about how they wish they could have her stay since he was the only good part of the crossover?

I'll be entirely honest, and this is not aimed towards you because you've been great, but my opinion of the hardcore stans side of fndm is one that I never think can get lower, and then they all pull out the shovels and prove me wrong. However, that doesn't mean I don't understand where they come from on the tamer stuff (compared to some of the other fndm drama Jessica Cruz's whole Thing is tame and I think that reflects more on how bad the fndm drama can get then on her being whitewashed and woobified).

Like, I get why people like Jessica, it's a Character Type that's very popular with fans, it's the sort that fits perfectly into text post memes and incorrect quote jokes, she's now The Cute Scaredy-Cat, The Innocent Babey, #Protecc, which is a character type rwby hasn't really had as a single character on their own. (the 'broader flattening of characters in some media to be gif bait/incorrect quote fuel' issue looms faintly in the distance)

I mean, character-wise, everyone else in the JL is broadly heroic and inoffensively bland 90% of the time (aside from Bruce and Diana, who are so wildly OOC that it made my blood pressure spike), so having Jessica as the Quirky Silly really made her stand out, even if I think that rwby's favourite style of 'quirky silly humour where the characters move like twitchy cardboard cutouts and we have silly sound effects' is both lazy, awkward, often mistimed, and poorly-handled.

It clearly goes down well with devoted fans, for some reason I'll never understand, so I get why they would have clung onto Jessica in that way, and without being aware of just how badly they neutered her broader characterisation, she does have the most moments written with, well, intent to evoke emotion, aside from Jaune. Her anxiety monologue would ring true with people who have similar experiences, and her voice actress was really trying with what she was given.

Also, Jaune is beloved in the fndm, again for reasons I will not understand because while I like Jaune I do think he's a 'works best in smaller doses' character and also the fndm just. cannot characterise him in a likable way, so having the Quirky Shy One paired up with Fandom Fav really would make her endearing to people.

So, yeah. I get where it all comes from, I really do, and, again, I'm not gonna hate someone for finding joy in something I don't unless they're like, being bad about it, but that doesn't mean I think the same, that's all. The fndm can do what it wants, I don't have to like it, but I'm gonna stay in my lane and reserve the right to judge quietly.

[metawatts]

Top 5 best fights? Top 5 worst fights? In RWBY. Maybe split between the ones that are well/poorly choreographed and ones that are well/poorly written.

Right well generally when I'm looking at a fight I like to ask these things. Is the fight:

Well-Written (serves the plot/in character)

Well-Choreographed

Has the Funky Extra Stuff (music, setting, all the lil fx bits)

Does it make sense to happen in-universe beyond being ‘well rwby is a fighting anime so here’s a fight’ gif bait (like, was the lead up good or is it contrived, did it make sense to be duking it out, grimm just randomly showing up is acceptable in all cases because that's the point of them in-universe)

Entertaining to Watch

and if it gets like, 3 of those I'll consider it a good fight. 3 outta 5 is good. So here's my top 5, all of which I think are a 5/5 on this. I also decided to challenge myself by not picking multiple from each volume.

Top 5 Fights in RWBY, as judged by Metawatts.

Tyrian v RNJR and Qrow (listen tyrian's just really good at this)

Ruby vol4 character short (my fav trailer)

Yang v Mercury (best choreo in all rwby)

Weiss and Pilot v Lancers (i liked the physics on this one)

RWBY v Paladin (the one singular time team rwby fought as a proper team)

Extra freebie because I deserve it: Blacksun vs Roman (gunchucks)

Now. As for. The top 5 worst that I don't like. That's not to say that they don't get a 0/5, but that I personally don't rate them all that well. Also I should note the Battle for Haven and all of vol8 are freebies because every one of those fights minus maybe raven v cinder were goddamn dogshit. And I can't pick rwby v ace ops because I've already bagged on it

Cordovin's Mech v The Idiot Brigade (absolute worst fight, stupidest plotline, literally what made me start critiquing rwby, I came out of my well to shame rwby for this and did not go back and now I have a rwde blog)

JNPR v BRNZ (the fact that they stopped the fight to have a conversation. just. all of it. JNPR is not as funny as crwby seems to think they are)

the Whole Furious Cat Fight at the end of vol9 (all shit, even the one single bit of good scythe choreo, why couldn't Neo have just. stayed the villain again?)

Atlas Montage/FNKI v JNRO (screw you atlas montage and your weird blake/qrow duet and also Nora's weird possessive creepiness over Ren)

CFVY in the Breach (i literally hate all of team cfvy except maybe velvet, fuck those books)

So yeah! Fun times!

[metawatts]

Thoughts on the PEAK Ironwood vs Watts fight from vol7?

Creative use of environment my beloved: Watts hacks. the whole. the whole arena. what a godtier move. The way he uses the changing gravity, the geysers, the magma, his own hardlight hexagons, even the different levels of height. The way JAMES uses it, where at one point you see him pick a different route just so he can get the drop on Watts. You do not see shit like this in other rwby fights, you really don't.

Interesting understanding of strengths and weaknesses on both sides: James has one goal in the fight and that is 'get in close'. He knows the moment he's in there he's going to absolutely body Watts, and Watts knows it too. They're both counting Watts's bullets (hilarious), and Watts is doing everything he can to prey on breaking down James's aura and stay away before James gets him. They both know exactly what the other can and can't do, and it's just a really interesting thing. And then when both auras are off and they close ranks? How Watts hides a ploy behind ploys and James shows just how tough his willpower is? great characterisation

Great song: I don't care what anyone else says: Caleb Hyles killed this, good on him, you go dude, take the crown, Hero is rad

Good voice acting: I mean these two VAs are two of the best in rwby. Jason Rose brings his everything to Ironwood (even if the lines are stupid), and Christopher Sabat is a goddamn professional, that's All Might, Major Armstrong, and Azure Lion right there

Emotional and evocative: 'you always were a pain in the ass' 'you never appreciated my genius' I love the messy break up so much these two had History sizzling right off the bone and it was so much more than we usually get in rwby writing, where they refuse to let anyone else interact with their villains unless its straight up torture porn (cough). what a shame

[metawatts]

Saw your review for the jl/rwby crossover. You mentioned Cruz as being one of the failures of the movie. Kind of leaves me conflicted because honestly she was kind of my favorite part of the movie while everything else was just mostly meh or frustrating. I am not that familiar with comic Cruz and the Incarnation I am more familiar with from DC superhero girls is very different from the comic from what little I know. Care to do a deep dive on this particular GL and how the crossover failed her?

Alright, I have some time to do asks, so lets dive on in! I was gonna write this out way better but my dotpoints kinda became their own essay so here we go!

TL:DR: I think that Jessica's anxiety was mishandled due to a fundamental misunderstanding of how her character is built in the comics, because they wanted a Cute Agoraphobic Queen (and forgot to have the agoraphobia). I also think that she lacked agency in her own mental health and plotline, with Jaune being the main mover in both, and that there is whitewashing to her design, as seen here compared to: other cartoons, other comic runs, her other rwby designs (feat. one Simon Baz because DC is keeping him from me)

Yeah. Hm. Anyway, lets get into my rambly thoughts about Jessica Cruz

Alright first things first: I’m not against Jessica Cruz being written differently to the comics if she’s written respectfully. I also really do like dc superhero girls and Jessica there is very fun as a character, even if I have some other issues with what they took out from her storyline

The thing about this iteration of Jessica Cruz is that apparently the theme of the movie was ‘gun violence’ or whatever and that’s. That’s her whole. That’s literally her whole comic backstory.

For a quick recap in the comics: Jessica Cruz one day was hiking with friends before they stumbled across some guys dumping bodies in the woods. All of Jessica’s friends were shot down and murdered right in front of her for being witnesses, and Jessica gained an absolutely brutal case of PTSD, which later fuelled her agoraphobia and anxiety.

Then, after spending 3 years literally never leaving her apartment out of terror that she was going to be tracked down and murdered like her friends, she was instead tracked down by an artifact called Power Ring (it’s complicated but p much it’s like an Evil Inverse Green Lantern Ring). The Power Ring, which is fuelled by the wearer’s fear and trauma, forces itself onto Jessica and turns her into a villainous puppet for it’s own will. She’s canonically being tortured by physical and psychological pain the whole time she’s wearing it. She’s nearly saved a few times from her Literal Possession but the thing that sticks is when she pulls a self-sacrifice and supposedly dies, only it turns out that the ring died in her place and then she got a Green Lantern Ring for her bravery in facing her fears and such. (I think the universe/writers were apologising because Genuinely WTF)

Now, the thing that a lot of people praise about Jessica as a character in most comics, is that she is, most of the time, a very realistically-written character with anxiety. Her anxiety is rooted mostly in her PTSD, which means that it has very definite triggers, one of which is, on her bad days, ‘guns being aimed at her’.

However, Jessica is also someone who actively works on this aspect of her mental health, she’s shown having gone to therapy sessions, learnt how to internally combat her negative self-talk, and actively works on herself. She has her coping mechanisms, and they genuinely work for her when she’s spiralling, and she’s able to work through her anxiety and remind herself that, in what is one of her main catchphrases ‘you are not your fear’.

DC Superhero girls pretty much just axed Jessica’s anxiety entirely and while she’s a fun character she’s also not really close enough to comics Cruz for me to really draw comparisons, although I do wish they’d been willing to explore that storyline (and maybe have Simon there) I understand why with the age range they didn’t decide to throw in Gun Violence and Anxiety (but they could have had Simon there where are you keeping him dc)

Meanwhile: RWBY/JL Jessica Cruz. Well. I don’t want to hate on people who like her. If you found joy in something that I did not, then I’m happy for you, but I do want to explain my problems. The first is the way they misrepresented and mishandled her anxiety, and the second is Jaune. Why does it always have to be Jaune, I don’t even hate Jaune, I just hate how much everyone in the writing rooms love him.

Anxiety: Jessica in the film is pretty much given a much more generalised anxiety disorder. She mentions that she’s had it from a young age, that she’s always been afraid, that the ring helped her fit in. She’s given a much different trigger of claustrophobia, and her agoraphobia is completely missing from her character. DC Superhero Girls took away her anxiety, so there’s nothing to misrepresent. RWBY/JL put in her anxiety, and put in the wrong one.

Comics Jessica’s anxiety, and her insecurities, come from a genuinely traumatic event, one that shaped her for years, one that she’s still fighting overcome. And then worse stuff happened to her and she kept going. I have a generalised anxiety disorder, I’ve had one since I was a teenager, and I can also say that how it was shown in the movie was… kind of stereotypical. She’s meek, and she shy, and she’s nervous and jumpy and doesn’t feel like she can do anything. And this is meant to be Jessica who still is that adult, just in a teen brain, and I know hormones suck, but they completely axed the fact that this is canonically a character who has mental health issues and works on them so they could have Jaune peptalk her through her panic attacks, which. Cures them, all of a suddenn

Yeah we’re getting into the Jaune stuff now. Jaune is the catalyst for everything Jessica does. He makes the plans while she worries, he talks her through her panic, he talks her through all her anxiety, and then… that’s it, really, all she does from that point on in the movie is Solve All The Problems. The emotional core of most of their scenes from post-Jessica confessing her anxiety disorder up until ‘the claustrophobia panic attack’ is on Jaune missing Pyrrha so much that he ignores Jessica actually trying to be reasonable about ‘this is sus’. It feels like they wanted to do ‘Jessica gets a best friend who helps her through her anxieties and supports her to stand on her own’, forgot to write the second part of that, and forgot one other tiny lil detail

WHICH IS SHE HAS ONE.

Simon Baz is Jessica’s Green Lantern partner in the comics, they’re your classic ‘hothead/cautious’ duo, they have literally the best interactions of friendship ever, this is the man who worries that Jessica’s not feeling okay after a bad day and shows up to make her pancakes for breakfast. They also have a real interesting quirk to their specific brand of green lanterning, which is that Hal Jordan was like ‘okay you need to learn to work together’ and fused their Power Batteries together. (quick rundown: green lantern rings need to be periodically charged up with lantern shaped power batteries otherwise there’s no constructs or cool costumes). Simon and Jessica cannot recharge their rings separately, they have to work as a team. And the first few comics of their run are great (I know nothing about the state of it now). They’re mutually supportive, they both have their issues, and Jaune feels like he was written to slot into that role.

I get that ‘we can’t have two green lanterns in here that’s boring’ was probably what was said but this is also what speaks to a wider issue about how Jessica is getting a lot more press time in non-comic properties. Which is awesome! Overall I love her character, I love the different takes on her, and it’s very cool to see her. Simon Baz, however. Is. Not getting any of this. Which is a shame. I just wish that my duo could get to be a duo.

But, I mean, if dc superhero girls is willing to just completely nix jess’s anxiety from her, why not nix Simon Baz’s backstory and still have him be her partner there? Why do all these properties decide that Jessica is best written when all of her character stuff beyond ‘female green lantern, occasionally nervous’ is removed from her? This isn’t just a rwby problem, but it’s something I’ve noticed especially in the rwby movie because of how they took Jessica’s character, when her backstory as it was would have tied into the so-called ‘theme’ for gun violence, and stripped her entirely for parts about ‘Jaune is a nice caring friend look how protective he is of poor scared Jessica’. He even powers her up for HER big 'ending the bad guy' move instead of allowing her to be as strong as a green lantern ring is meant to be

Jessica in the film is pretty much written as ‘nervous agoraphobic adorable widdle queen’, all of her actual agency, all of her own inner strength of being someone who struggles with anxiety and overcomes it is removed so that she can be a Pep Talk Recipient, and I gotta say another small thing: pep talks, in my experience, don’t actually cure a chronic generalised anxiety disorder.

Oh yeah and also not only is her Green Lantern outfit in this crossover really not good (everyone is, except vixen, vixen’s power is too strong for rwby character designers to truly damage), she’s also definitely whitewashed to the point that I think a lot of people would find it hard at first to know that she’s meant to be Latina. Like, even compared to her Adult Version, or her rwby comics version, or, say, some of the other animated versions of her, or even her comics version in The Good Runs, as shown above. I called her ‘ben 10-ified’, and I stand by that, it’s just… it's a bit eesh, considering rwby's other problems with colourism and such.

I think all the DC characters got massacred, but if this had to be the anxiety rep for the film, why couldn't it be the Jessica who was actively working on dealing with it, dealing with her self-talk, like this?

I know rwby's allergic to character development, but come on. Jessica is more than an Anxious UwU bean. That's kinda the whole point. Also, she plays pokemon, what's not to love?

[metawatts]

That post you made about bees. Is it referencing the video game that I think it's referencing, or is it just a coincidence?

i have no idea what video game you're referencing, so pure coincidence! I was referencing a meme, which may have been referencing a video game, but I only know the top level.

The funniest part about my meme is that it is canon and also the trajectory of their lives didn't change rip Ruby you committed die for nothing but some of the worst handling of suicide and depression I've ever seen in a show

[metawatts]

Happy pride rt only cares about bb for merch sales and smokescreening from their horrific company practices instead of being good representation or well-written 🐝❤️🧡 💛 💚 💙💜🐝

[metawatts]

In your opinion what do you think the best and worst fight in volume 9 was?

Okay so, volume 9 was... definitely a strange one in terms of the way the fights were done. But just for a quick TL:DR:

Best fight, on a technical level: Ruby's lil scythe moment against the Furious Cat. Everyone's been wanting Ruby to use her scythe in an effective manner, we've known they can do it because we've seen Qrow's fights in vol6/7, and they finally let their actual lead character actually use her scythe for the first time since the Red Trailer.

Worst fight: all the rest of the fight against the Furious Cat/NeoCat. It sucked ass. Every bit of it. Bad choreo, bad writing, bad characters, completely undercuts the set-up, just bad.

My personal favourite: Ruby vs the Jabberwalker in episode 7 (not the rest of the fight with WBYJ just Ruby's moment). I liked how it basically foreshadowed Ruby's imminent breakdown and the toll the Ever After was taking on her. Was it subtle? As a speeding train, but. It was decent.

Overall, 99% of the fights in this volume were gif bait spectacle fights instead of anything plot relevant. But that just seems to be the way rwby's wheels are turning now, most of of the vol8 fights are the same, bare minimum of set-up (or actively contradicting earlier set-up), no real pay off, just Cool Moves for people to share screenshots of. And that's not bad, necessarily, but it also could be better.

[metawatts]

Rwby fans are still trying to cope with the fact that Ironwood is hotter than their fave barely adult waifus

He so is, good for him. King.

listen, one day I'll write up the post on rwby's frankly weird way they sexualise women, especially the mains, but honestly? Today is a day for dunking on anonymous hate.

So here is my lil warning: anonymous hate will not be discussed, debated, or treated with any seriousness on this blog. I will meme and mock any anonymous hate I get, and I won't even do it in a clever gotcha way, anon hate will get whoopie cushion fart noise levels of humour.

So to the anon haters: if you're civil with me, I'm civil with you. But if you roll up acting like a clown, I'm gonna hand you a red nose, giant squeaky shoes, and a pie to the face. Welcome to the big top enjoy your stay.

[metawatts]

Poor you, the authoritarian you worship isn't the strong man everyone obeys you want him to be. Get a life, you fascist POS.

Authoritate DEEZ NUTS-

[metawatts]

What are your thoughts about the fight of Ironwood vs everyone in vol. 8? I was so annoyed by it. I felt like they nerfed Ironwood so hard. Oh, and the writers decided to NOW use Marrow's semblance to stop characters before they can start fighting (the Ace Ops). Would have been nice to have consistent writing and have Marrow use that in the fight against RWBY. (Loved your review of JLxRWBY, btw. You put exactly how I felt into words.)

Well the reason you feel like Ironwood was nerfed was, in fact, because he WAS. I pulled this fact from the rwby wikia because I don’t have it in me to actually hunt down the quote, but, according to the Director’s commentary on episode 12, ‘the reason that Ironwood lost was because the writers felt that Team ORNJ deserved a win after losing to Neopolitan in Volume 7.’

So don’t worry, you’re not crazy. Ironwood absolutely got nerfed so MKEK could make sure JNR didn’t look like the jobbers we know they are. That’s plot armour, deus ex machina, and hand of the author at work, straight from the horse’s mouth. No one is allowed call MKEK good writers ever again, do the words 'kill your darlings' mean nothing anymore?

Anyway, this fight. It’s crap. Honestly a lot of the fights in vol8 are just really bad, that volume was just a disgrace in every way. Personal gripe: the song that plays over it, ‘Be Strong and Hit Stuff’, is probably my least favourite song on the entire vol8 album and considering all of them on the whole suck except for the one that was not written for the show, that’s a low bar. Most of why I hate this song is because Nora is without a doubt my absolute least favourite character in the whole show, but it’s also just. I’ll do song rankings one day.

It's just the same style of formulaic combat that rwby does in every fight of the entire volume. It’s just JNROW mashing their attack buttons until they get a decent combo. And the qrow and robyn and marrow vs the other ace ops scene? Don’t even talk to me about that, so Marrow suddenly has the guts to stop fighters in their tracks when it’s his old team? Vol8 really took every character I vaguely liked and put a gun to their likability (except you Watts you kept slaying, I named this blog for YOU).

I mean, real quick combat breakdown: Emerald rips off Mercury’s kick and then does nothing for the rest of the fight. Jaune and Oscar trade off ‘whack ironwood with my bladed weapon/cane’ before Ren does his stupid rope trick and decides he wants to try whack at Ironwood. Ironwood is doing great here honestly, he’s just in full boxer mode, his guard’s consistently up, he recovers quickly and adapts, he lands some good blows. Jaune and Ren also quietly drop out of the fight here, because Nora is getting powered up by Winter, somehow, even though she’s never been shown to use dust ever she suddenly uses it all the time even though her weapon lacks the same sort of dust casing as Weiss so where’s this come from you’d think she’d have used it against Cinder when she was literally getting killed but WHATEVER-

Anyway Nora gets the first major relevant hit on Ironwood because literally of course she does, we cut off to Marrow being a turncoat, and then cut back to Winter and Oscar riding a Manticore while Nora joins Jaune and Ren and Emerald in ‘not existing in this fight sequence anymore’ land, and apparently they just decided after getting one hit in they’d pause to get on an animal instead of continuing attacking, this fight makes no sense.

Anyway, Ironwood destroys the Manticore barehanded, king shit, Winter hits him with the ice dust she suddenly uses, Oscar poke attacks, and right when ironwood’s about to knock this kid out of the stratosphere, Winter uses some sort of flashy finishing move that is literally ripped from Kill La Kill I see those studio trigger sparkles. Again, also makes no fucking sense either, what even is this, and don’t tell me ‘rule of cool’ because it wasn’t cool, it was lame. And also, so much for ‘give JNRO a win’, they can’t even stick to their own favouritism because Winter does all the actual fuckin work here.

Overall scores

Story Context: 4/10

Fight Choreography: 1/10

Authorial Bullshit Intervention (Plot Armour, this time admitted to): 10/10

Emotional Investment: 4/10 (but only because I wanted Ironwood to at least megaton punch Jaune or Nora into outer space)

Deserved Outcome: 1/10

Also, thank you!! I ended up having a lot of fun writing out my JLxRWBY review, even if a lot of it was tempered by Seething Rage. Being a miserly grump sometimes is good for the soul, after all.

[metawatts]

Bitch about the RWBY vs Ace Ops fight. Pretty please. 🥺

Oh this fight. This fight. Bane of my existence. And, also, I'll give the JLxRWBY movie props for proving one thing: Harriet would have soloed team rwby with EASE if the writers weren't afraid to let a girlboss win. (my evidence: Flash kicking Ruby, Weiss, Batman, and Superman around like footballs while possessed, especially Ruby and Weiss before they get their Heroic Speech Power-up, which is a lame way to do it but whatever)

My problems with this fight scene are numerous and varied but the thing that continues to stick in my craw is just all the convenience of it. Let's break it down:

Convenient Thing 1: Marrow doesn't use his semblance off the bat, which would freeze team rwby in place, even though we've been shown that it works on crowds, on Huntsmen, literally he'd have to do is point. He literally has the 'solve this without brawling' button and just doesn't press it, instead just whining about duking it out when he could stop it.

Convenient Thing 2: The Ace Ops and RWBY have spent the night fighting Grimm in Mantle, but aside from a Damsel In Distress aura flicker with Blake, they all go down in 2-4 hits while RWBY takes easily the same or more amount and doesn't. THe rules of aura are bullshit.

Convenient Thing 3: They keep making comments that attempt to justify the fact that the ace ops lost because of Emotions using the lines 'we're the best in atlas' 'you were, then you trained us', 'alright vine, don't hold back' 'are you telling me that or yourself' 'Marrow, cut the crap' 'I'm trying to arrest her, not kill her'. Ren later talks about 'something something friendship power' but that makes zero sense because if team rwby won via the power of friendship, then why were these all solo fights and one double battle? (also the latter lines imply that elm and marrow could and would have bodied WBY and Harriet did in fact completely knock Ruby around like a trashcan for most of the fight, but nah, team rwby wins because their name's on the brand)

Convenient Thing 4: this one's less convenient and more Straight Up Racis, but the DVD commentary goes that 'the ace ops didn't win because they didn't have Clover's semblance to cheese it', which is, well, not only convenient for team rwby, but also just another time where crwby was openly Horrific, in this case going, 'without their white guy leader the poc team can't accomplish anything', but the fndm tries to pretend they weren't (see also crwby going with their mouths 'ironwood losing his arm is a sign of losing his humanity' and the fndm just tries to. Pretend that isn't horrifically ableist. But that's a rant we all know).

Convenient Thing 5: if getting to Mantle is so important, and Ruby's head is hard enough to bust through the steel barricade Harriet dropped down, why waste time on a spectacle fight and not just have Ruby grab her teammates and bust out the window with her steel forehead? (also, the fact that she had the mass to break down a door in petal form really just shows that the 'rwby has no mass' bullshit in vol8 was completely pulled out of the writer's asses because they wrote themselves into a corner).

Conveninent Thing 6, which is actually the second half of 5: why is it that team rwby's big spectacle fight is in episode 12 of 13 against characters who were introduced in this season, and not, say, the big finale fight against an actual villain? it's so convenient for the writers to just toss a random cannon fodder 'surprise baddie' at team rwby to beat up so that they don't have to write actual plot interactions with team rwby vs the villains that they have history with. (ie. everything about the Cat in vol9 and Neo just straight up not being in her own finale fight)

Also, and I'd like to make this clear: the ace ops v rwby fight is BORING. Not even the Spectacle part of the Spectacle fight is good. Ruby v Harriet is just a blur of red blob vs gold lines with the occasional chance to make Harriet look comedic with how she has to spend the last bit of it tied up, literally loses by running into a wall, and makes an ahegao face as she passes out. Elm and Vine vs Blake and Yang is just watching Blake and Yang get ragdolled around until they smirk and suddenly Vine (who had spent most of the fight standing there) got ragdolled and Elm got the Funny humiliating defeat of 'landing funny, toe twitches, hahaha'.

Weiss and Marrow is just Yikes. Like yes lets continually have close ups on Marrow's tail getting burnt and him having to make silly poses to avoid impalement meanwhile the white Megacorp Cop Princess gets to constantly look graceful (they couldn't have had Marrow fight anyone else? Literally any of the others? They literally had the opening bit of the fight start with him clashing weapons with Blake before switching up, was the idea of Blake having to fight someone without being stitched to Yang's side too unbaity for crwby's wallet or-)

Also, the ending: team rwby did mostly use tricks to get an advantage, what with Ruby using Harriet's bolas against her, Blake and Yang setting up a bomb trap for Vine, Weiss taking advantage of Marrow's line of sight with his semblance, and... that's about it, but like, I'm not a 'power levels solve every fight' person, that's not fun, but the endings mostly still ended up being 'hit them harder' and the tricks only worked because the ace ops were all given the collective intelligence level of a salami sandwich in this fight just so the fight could happen instead of, say, Marrow using his fucking semblance from the get-go. Also, the fact that apparently aura breaks knock out the ace ops but in the same season Ironwood, Clover, and Winter all get broken auras but can still keep chatting and fighting is Something. Too convenient, throw the whole fight out.

Overall scores:

Story Context: 1/10

Fight Choreography: 3/10

Authorial Bullshit Intervention (Plot Armour): 10/10

Emotional Investment: 1/10

Deserved Outcome: 2/10

I hate this fight so much it is in my top 10 worst rwby fights (except for specifically seeing Elm put that warhammer to good use and Harriet's absolutely sick kicks)

[metawatts]

Justice League x RWBY: Super Heroes and Huntsmen Part One

I've been workshopping this review for a week it is 9 fucking pages but anyway: It's dangerous to go alone! Take this!

Table of Contents

#1. Introduction: Not for DC Fans

#2. Starting off: “The Good-

#3. Propping Up RWBY over the Justice League

#4. The Texas Character Massacre

#5. Oh boy lets talk about the writing

#6. Other General Notes: -The Bad, and The Ugly”

#7. Final Scores!!

TL:DR- They better not make the 'part 2'. Let's get into it.

#1. Introduction: Not for DC Fans

Let’s get this out of the way: this is a movie made for RWBY fans. It’s made for people who are familiar with RWBY, with the characters, with the worldbuilding, and it’s made with the idea that the people watching are RWBY fans, with DC fans as the backburner. The first reason why I think this? The DC characters get a lot more exposition on who and what they are, while the RWBY characters get to exist and be ‘cool’.

The second reason? This movie is, lets face it, mean-spirited towards DC. And yeah whatever, a DC comic writer wrote this, but to be fair with the state of comics nowadays that says absolutely nothing about respect given to the characters that are popular and well-known (hint: it’s not RWBY). This movie is drenched in schoolyard meanness. It’s all about pointing and laughing at the DC characters. Our introductory scene to this film involves Superman being systematically humiliated in his first scene (unable to use his powers, having his hero codename be mocked, etc.), and that sets the tone.

Meanwhile, the RWBY characters are introduced with action set pieces and knowing about the world they are in. The DC characters are the ones who are comedic relief, who need to be ‘taken down a peg’, who must struggle and prove themselves to RWBY to get the ‘honour’ of working with them, while RWBY doesn’t have to struggle and instead gets to just be ‘cool’. And that’s detrimental to the RWBY characters as well too, by the way, so don’t think I’m being unfair. No one in this film has a character arc, except Jessica, supposedly, and Batman, unfortunately, and you would think that coming off the back of volume 9, often called the ‘character development’ volume, people would be complaining that RWBY and JNR are quite flat, in how they progress through the film.

Basically: The RWBY characters are set dressing; the Justice League are punching bags. With that as our thesis, let’s review this movie. (warning for spoilers)

#2. Starting Off: “The Good-

Now, I won’t pretend this movie was enjoyable for me by any means, but I’m not unreasonable, it had its positives. Four, specifically.

The first one is obvious: the Spectacle Fight Scenes. This movie had a bunch of fights packed away in it, and the overall quality of them was on the whole, in the higher tier of rwby’s Maya fight scenes. Bar a few bits of wonkiness and the general writing surrounding the fights, they were fun. A particular shout-out to my favourite one at the end, Hacked!Flash vs Everyone, that one was fun and fast and highly enjoyable.

Number 2: Batman’s semblance. I’ll fully admit that I’m pretty sure my enjoyment of this power implementation was purely because I like Batman: Arkham Asylum, and this is literally just ripped right from that down to the aesthetics, but, well- I like Batman: Arkham Asylum, and therefore I like Bruce’s Detective Vision semblance and how it was used pretty creatively compared to most other semblances.

Third times the charm: Superman was my shining light, my beacon of hope in this film. He was kind, he was polite, he was supportive and brave and friendly and also, surprisingly for RWBY, managed to do all this without being spineless, he was willing to stand up for himself when he thought he was being treated unfairly (at least, 80% of the time). I wouldn’t even normally consider myself a massive Superman fan, I like when he’s well-written and I notice when he isn’t, but this movie had me actively rooting for any time where he was on screen, he was my absolute highlight in this film, love him even if his fit is fuckin ATROCIOUS. (and his voice acting was, by and large, one of the strongest performances, beyond Kilg%re and Hacked!Barry, who were just clearly having a delightful time villain monologuing)

Number four: the idea of Grimm absorbing dust. It’s a brilliant idea that really ups the stakes in RWBY fights, considering dust is their go-to offensive weapon and literally powers all their bullets, and, amazingly, it was also a cool idea that was carried throughout most of the film. Every Grimm in this film had the ability, more or less, and they used it often and to great effect. Very nicely implemented.

(Final tiny shout-out: the Justice League’s superhero outfits in their own world, that we regrettably only see in a few flashback images, looked GOOD. I wish they kept them instead of getting the outfits in the film proper)

But alas, this film really did have a lot more negatives than positives, so lets get into the first big flaw, and the one I would consider the movie’s biggest failing:

#3. Propping Up RWBY over the Justice League

I mentioned it in the intro, but this movie is consistent in how it utterly devalues the Justice League characters and does everything in its power to showcase RWBY and JNR as ‘better’ in every way. Now, the argument is that this is intentional, seeing as the villain deliberately nerfed the JL characters into being teenagers to weaken them. To which case I point at probably what is probably the most referenced episode of the Justice League cartoon in regards to this movie, the one where they’re turned into literal children, appropriately named ‘Kid Stuff’, and I’ll also point out the lesser known episode of Justice League Action called ‘Trick or Threat’, which had the added bonus of wiping the JL character’s memories of being superheroes.

Now, why am I bringing these up? Its because both of these episodes had the same villain idea as this movie: de-age the Justice League to weaken them, and both of these episodes also did something that the movie failed to do: keep the characters in-character and acting their age, and treat them with respect. I’ll get to the character issues in the next section, but the idea of treating characters respectfully is not done in this film.

Superman, as stated prior, is nerfed, his name is made fun of, he’s talked down to constantly, he’s insulted, he’s distrusted, and not just by team RWBY. But he is not the only one. Wonder Woman has a mishap when trying to get the hang of her new abilities and Blake and Yang laugh at her. Flash, Vixen, Cyborg, and Green Lantern spar against JNR and despite still maintaining most of their adult memories beyond the immediate, and supposedly their skills minus powers, end up on the defensive. Against JNR, not even against the main team RWBY or against Pyrrha. They are outclassed by the side-character team. Batman, the hand-to-hand specialist, is outclassed by Weiss in close-quarters and then a few random SDC guards, Wonder Woman and Superman mostly escape unscathed, beyond the new drawbacks of their semblances, but it’s telling that most of the fight scenes are more focused on the cool things RWBY and JNR do instead of the JL characters (bar the Big Three). Cyborg’s biggest combat moment that’s given any narrative weight is him powering up Nora. Vixen doesn’t even get a moment, and Flash’s only moments come when he’s being the Villain and not Flash. The JL characters are supporting characters in a movie that’s supposed to be about teamwork.

Second point: they really hype Grimm up as scary, even stating ‘Grimm aren’t like your normal monsters, they’re soulless beings that only care about destroying and killing’. And it’s treated as a big moment of internal revelation and horror for the Justice League. Let me say that again, the fact that monsters only care about destroying things, is played as horrifying. For the Justice League. The guys who faced down, canonically in this film: Vandal Savage, an immortal sadistic genius who literally just wants to destroy the world consistently, and Brainiac, a hyper-intelligent alien android who’s goals range from ‘destroyed krypton in some continuities’ to ‘hobbies include horrifically mind controlling people to do evil and shrinking Actual Cities for his snow-globe collection’.

But yes. Grimm are scary now. These are the same Grimm that basically act as cannon fodder in all of RWBY’s actual run time, bar one-offs, and exist just to give the protagonists something they can guilt-free rip their way through to show off. Those Grimm. Those are the scary ones now, supposedly. Despite this artificial attempt to make RWBY seem more badass then the league for fighting monsters, the Grimm are still cannon fodder, the movie doesn’t stray that far from RWBY’s conventions.

Finally, there’s a consistent running theme that ties into the leadership qualities of Ruby vs Clark, but mostly ends up as ‘the Justice League try to come up with ideas and plans, and team RWBY and JNR yell at them for daring to tell them what to do’. Most particularly, it’s Wonder Woman, Superman, and Batman who actually spark Team RWBY into realising that there’s a problem that needs solving. It’s them that comes up with 90% of the plans, and its them that put their money where their mouth is on being not only a good team and smart heroes, but also as friends (more on that later). But instead, whenever they come up with good ideas, it’s shut down, mostly by Nora, and also Yang, as ‘I’m not going to listen to you/don’t tell us what to do/you’re not the boss of me’.

There’s a very big sense of undeserved ego there, especially since the RWBY characters haven’t actually given a reason why they shouldn’t listen beyond general contrariness. But also, it’s a sentiment that does not work on a battlefield, and it does not work in a movie that tries to have a theme of ‘coming together’. Mostly because in a standard plotline about ‘working together’, the disagreements usually require resolving, or meeting in the middle. There is none of that here. The Justice League just bends the knee and goes with being mistreated by teenagers who have not shown their chops as heroes, but it’s still given the ending of ‘we’re all friends now’. The first of many character assassinations throughout this film.

#4. The Texas Character Massacre

This one’s a doozy. No one escapes. Not even Superman, who is almost entirely spared, even he gets a dose of a ‘RWBY Heroic Speech that is just Empty Token Hero Stuff’ (AKA the thing that’s been plaguing Ruby since vol4). But I’ve used Superman already a lot, and he’s probably the least egregious of what happens here, so let’s get into the meat of this topic.

Everyone and their mom on twitter has been commenting about how Batman does not feel like Batman in this. And it’s true. Batman, the self-admitted ‘I haven’t been a kid since I was eight’, the man who is so obsessed with Gotham City it will one day kill him, the man who, even if in this continuity is not a father of 4-8+ adopted children, still has Alfred who he would die for and would die for him, the man who in the current comics run of RWBY in the DC universe says with his mouth ‘I don’t want this semblance, relying on it is detrimental in the long-term’. This Batman. Wants to ditch Gotham because he has wings and powers now.

‘Batman getting powers’ is not new ground, by the way, but the absolute moping this version of Batman does is not only annoying and actively unlikable, it also makes no sense. In the span of ten seconds, in the same conversation, he goes from ‘I want to go home’ to ‘I want to stay where I have powers’. This isn’t presented as a conflict of interest either, by the way. He just completely switches his mind because Weiss said ‘hey stay here’. There’s no consistency, there’s no internal character motivation, it felt like they just wanted to have one character conflicted about leaving HoloRemnant and decided just to throw a dart at a board without caring who it fit. So yes, Batman? Massacred.

Wonder Woman also got severely screwed over too. I had this in my notes that Wonder Woman only acted in character when she was reuniting with the rest of the Justice League and was allowed to show kindness and compassion. The rest of the time, Wonder Woman, a character defined by her love for the world (and was created to showcase feminine power, btw), is a Strong Female Character, and I do mean that in the Negative Way. She’s literally got a Batman Growl on her voice for 99% of her lines, she talks about how tough she is, about the ‘warrior’s life’, and she’s the first character to get violent in a situation. Yes, even beating out Yang ‘punch first, talk later’ Xiao Long. This feels like a parody of Wonder Woman written by someone who read the Whedon Wonder Woman script and took ‘some crazy strong bitch in a tiara’ as their entire central concept for the character. It’s not a Wonder Woman who believes in anything, she’s just a sidekick for the bees to prop themselves up with as ‘warriors’. I could write a million thinkpieces on what makes Wonder Woman an excellent hero character, but all I’ll say is this film’s Wonder Woman would not count.

Green Lantern will get her own post on how this movie handled her so fucking badly because that would balloon this review to a massive size when it’s already a Longk Boi, but suffice to say: she was whitewashed, her anxiety was mishandled, and fucking HELL I miss Simon Baz, why are we erasing Jessica’s friendship with Simon for some screentime-sucking white boy. (Racism and islamophobia, the answer is racism and islamophobia)

Cyborg, Flash, and Vixen all aren’t really characters in this movie as much as they are there to fill out the cast, but suffice to say, they were handled badly. Flash was at his most interesting when being visibly possessed by the villain because beyond that he was just entirely forgettable to the point that you will not notice he has been written out of a fight scene until Vixen goes ‘where’s Flash’. Vixen herself literally is the most sidelined of all the characters in this film, she doesn’t even get a Cool Action Moment, and has just two character traits: Sassy and Vaguely Animalistic Sometimes, not just because she’s a faunus, but her first scene we’re introduced to her sniffing a paper plane for what is literally the only ‘plot point’ she’s involved in, namely, that Flash ‘smells wrong’. And Cyborg. Man, Cyborg. They literally handed the hacking plotline to Weiss with the excuse of ‘the tech here is weird’ and instead shoved Cyborg into some weird jealousy triangle where he was so disrespected by Ren and Nora that even his goodbye to them is met with disdain. Cyborg and Vixen deserve so much better, guys.

Now, onto team RWBY and JNR. Remember how I said they were flat characters? Yeah, this bit’s gonna be a bit shorter. Ruby had probably the most ‘characterisation’ in the film, in that they literally just took volume 9’s idea of ‘Ruby has self-doubts’, slapped it on her, explored nothing, and then Clark gave her a quick Friendship Speech and she’s all smiley again. Weiss has a bit of flirting with Batman, suddenly gained hacking abilities out of nowhere, and is mainly the ‘nice but snobby’ archetype she’s been in main RWBY for ages. Actually, Weiss, Blake, Yang, and Jaune all mainly exist to serve plot points in some way. Weiss and her little storyline with Batman is just designed to reveal the villain, Jaune is there to push Jessica’s storyline of getting her powers back by Literally Curing Her Panic Attacks, and Blake and Yang? Well, they get Wonder Woman to the places she needs to visit, first Beacon, then Atlas, and then Vale again. Oh, and they have Moments. Your mileage may vary on if that’s good or not, it’s mainly superfluous to the film overall. Ren and Nora don’t actually contribute anything, beyond Ren being jealous of Cyborg and Nora, and Nora getting mad at both of them for being overly protective (I think it’s meant to be pushback against misogyny but. It’s poorly handled).

Actually, I lie. Blake does have at least one big thing of characterisation. But I’m going to put it in the next section, because it’s more of a writing problem. The final other characters in the film are Kilg%re, our villain, who is laughable, and the simulated versions of Glynda, Kali, Jacques, Ozpin/Oscar, and Pyrrha. All of whom are there just to… show that it’s a simulation, or something. They don’t do anything beyond Pyrrha being so obviously a trap for Jaune and Jessica that of course only Jaune ignoring Jessica’s common sense could have made it worse. Now, Onwards!!

#5. Oh boy lets talk about the writing

So. The Faunus racism plotline. Listen. It’s bad. We all know its bad. I’m not going into it because there are a million people smarter then me who already have done elaborate and well-thought analyses on why its bad. Can we just accept the Faunus plotline is horrendous and go from there? Okay? Okay.

So: Blake introduces the concept of faunus by describing her own race as ‘humans with ears or a tail’. As I saw someone else put it when the movie dropped, ‘people don’t describe themselves as a white person with darker skin’. Anyway, the faunus plotline. It’s not really touched on in this film beyond Jacques being racist towards Bruce and Blake being generally weird about it, and the idea that ‘the animal-themed superheroes are faunus now’, but it’s a plotline that RWBY will never escape and therefore must be mentioned as having some impact.

So lets talk about the actual racism in the movie and mention how the black woman is a Sassy Side Character, the two men of colour are shoved into a jealousy plotline over a white girl (again, reiterating: Weiss and Bruce have the hacking plotline), and the Latina girl has a white boy solve her mental illness for her after her character design was whitewashed. While I don’t think it’s intentionally racist, it is a bit of a pattern for all of RWBY’s stuff that characters of colour are either written off, villainised, or sidelined. I also want to mention: Oscar shows up in this literally just to get slammed hard into a pillar by Wonder Woman. They really can’t go five minutes without beating up this kid). This movie is not kind to the characters of colour, whether its by Actively Fucking Whitewashing Them or by just making them non-characters, and it’s just, unfortunately, exactly what was expected from a piece of RWBY media.

The mention of Oscar above reminded me: the simulation characters are… handled oddly. Ozpin is the most obviously fake, even before he starts glitching between his old self and Ozpin. But what’s strange is that out of all the simulations, Jacques of all characters has the most personality of them. Kali was always a side character, Glynda just creates exposition and sets up a fight scene, Ozpin isn’t even given a character he’s just Creepy Hologram, and Pyrrha has about one minute of ‘no wait its totally me’ before she goes The Most Evil (sidenote, they keep bringing Pyrrha back just to be evil, I hope that’s not another pattern). It’s just�� strange. The way the whole villain thing in this film works is strange. Which leads me to:

Kilg%re. When I found out who the villain of this film was I went on the mother of all rants on discord. And I will post it here for posterity, just so you know exactly what the gut reaction was.

As for why this reveal sucks: well. I mean, first of all, if you introduce the concept of your surprise villain as a joke earlier in the film, which they did, then it doesn’t really make them feel all that villainous. Sure enough, it gave Kilg%re a chip on the shoulder in his villain monologue, where he was whining about being ‘the one who finally trapped the Justice League’ (bestie they’re a superhero team from comics, they get trapped once a week and twice on Sundays, you’re not special, babe, sorry). And a character desperately yelling at the screen that ‘no I’m really cool trust me’ is not… fun. It’s just sort of awkward. Sorry, Kilg%re, they treated you badly. Also, they didn’t reveal the second villain on Remnant’s side beyond saying ‘he’, even when setting this during the Vol7 Montage, so I guess that’s a mystery for the next movie, if it’s ever made (personally I’m hoping for Dr Merlot, why not).

On the flipside of villains being written badly, this film also has romance written badly. It’s just jealousy and love triangles, jealousy and love triangles. Not even interesting love triangles either, just ‘character A shows interest in character B, which makes character C get really possessive and (in all but one case) mean to B’. The As: Cyborg, Yang, Bruce. The Bs: Nora, Diana, Weiss. The Cs: Ren, Blake, Diana (again). It’s not cute, and it’s especially not cute when it’s repeated three times in the same film. It’s just boring.

Finally: and this is the thing that truly, genuinely, made me want to write this whole thing because of how rage inducing it is, is this monologue given to us by Blake:

"They sound lucky. They've never had to worry they were gonna die just from going to school. To train like your life, or worse, your friends' lives depend on it. To have to live with the fact that there's a real chance you're gonna lose them. They had a childhood."

Lets count it down, people!!

Superman: literally an allegory for illegal immigrants, refugee orphans (an alien who was adopted and raised in America after his home was made unsafe) and in many case Jewish people, what with all the Moses Allegory. Had to hide the fact that he was an alien all his life, starting from childhood.

Batman: watched his parents get gunned down in front of him at age 8. This is so integral an event that it is a fulcrum point not only of his character, but also of most of the main Dc Universe that Bruce’s Parents Die.

Flash: his mother was murdered in front of him by a time-travelling speedster and his father was arrested for it. Barry grew up with the stigma of having a murderer for a father who he is generally seen as visiting constantly in jail.

Cyborg: he is a disabled black man whose father fused him with alien technology to keep him alive after a near-death experience that also completely replaced 90% of his body and meant he had to give up on his dreams of being a sports star. Usually also has a dead mom around there too.

Green Lantern: a Latina woman who had a decent childhood by most accounts in the comics, but had the unfortunate luck of witnessing gangsters hiding a body while out hiking with her friends. Watched her friends get gunned down around her, spent the next four years extremely agoraphobic to the point of never leaving her apartment because of her trauma and the fear that the gangsters would finish the job. Family’s alive, but that was only the start of the ‘Jessica Has A Bad Time’ train.

Vixen: Mari’s backstory is a bit more nebulous as long as the main points of ‘was born in an African village, got the tantu totem, moved to America and became a superhero and usually also a model’ is met, but she also tends to have a dead mom or dead parents floating around too most of the time, whether that’s by poachers, warlords, or some other awful human-caused tragedy.

Wonder Woman: raised on an island that was in comics literally called 'Paradise Island' by her loving mother, trained with all her Amazon family to become a warrior, the island is explicitly protected from all of the evil of Man’s World by magic, and willingly chose to leave to go do good and protect people.

So we have one princess raised on a paradisal island ethnostate with loving, caring parents telling another princess raised on a paradisal island ethnostate with loving caring parents that ‘yeah your friends have horrific backstories, but they were lucky because they didn’t do what we did and WILLINGLY sign up for a job as a monster killer where we get four years of training and preparation and also are paid well for our actions instead of freelance vigilante work for charity, so if you think about it, us RWBY kids are the real victims/warriors here’.

Just in case anyone was wondering why I think Wonder Woman’s OOC in this film.

Oh also this monologue is an allegory for gun violence and school shootings, as confirmed by the writer in this article and I am including the quote for posterity and also so people can’t say I made it up: https://animemojo.com/other/exclusive-interview-with-justice-league-x-rwby-super-heroes-huntsmen-writer-meghan-fitzmartin-a14773#gs.w1iou8

“These kids are warriors and these RWBY kids are a really good look at what we’re putting a lot of kids through today. There’s a statistic I saw recently that said 1-in-5 kids will die in gun violence in America. That sucks. That’s the level of warrior stuff we’re putting our kids through and it’s a good example of what’s happening to this current generation. I wanted to make a point of saying, ‘What does that do to us?’ Looking into the leadership or what these characters go through, it’s interesting to see what they have to give up to give future generations a chance. I think that resonates a lot with kids today.” - Meghan Fitzmartin

Just. In case anyone else wants to be angry about this with me. Hey, RWBY, you can’t have the actual tagline of your show be ‘it’s also a gun’ and then go ‘gun violence is bad tho’ because oh man then your main characters look like real monsters for all the times they pull guns on people (such as all the unarmed civilians or people who they pulled guns on first who then pulled out their own guns in self-defence). Also, if this is one of the themes of the movie, then this is also the only time it’s touched on. The concept of ‘being a warrior’ becomes instantly watered down to mean ‘badass fighter’ and not ‘person carrying constant fear of death by rising gun violence’, so it’s also a really shallow use of an actually serious theme, which is par for the course with RWBY but is also still very annoying when it happens.

#6. Other General Notes: - the Bad, and the Ugly”

The music in this film was very weak. No hate to the composer but it’s barely noticeable and doesn’t really have anything of note. Normally I find a lot of DC stuff has decent music and RWBY in particular is praised for it. This was disappointing, audio-wise

The designs: Listen, RWY and JNR were fine, the Beacon designs are serviceable even if they aren’t my favourites overall. But anyway, lets rank the Justice League, best to worst!

#1. Vixen: even, somehow, in the world that is RWBY modelling, Vixen slays. She simply cannot look bad, ever. The focus on black and orange contrast instead of a million eye-searing colours, the sleekness of the jumpsuit, the fact that it’s not overly complicated, and that she actually has hair with curls in it? If not for the tail and the fact that it is literally just Harriet’s model, top points. You cannot keep a bad bitch down.

#2. Cyborg: Listen. It could have been worse. It could have been. So much worse.

#3. Wonder Woman: girlypop’s gonna cut someone on that chin, and her arm muscles look like braided bread. The ponytail would be passable if not for the way they modelled her hair tendrils, and the outfit… also could have been worse.

#4. Superman: The babyface and the way his hair is plastered to his head does not work, but I like how expressive his eyes are. The outfit is an atrocity to god but they all are from this point so at least his boots are cute and the whole denim jeans and denim jacket would work if they didn’t have that massive gold S on the shirt or the Fake Cape.

#5. Batman: ugly as sin. He has No Hood, Cowl, or Mask, his hair is bad, the scar on the eyebrow is the one cool thing, his outfit is awful, and when it’s folded up it looks like Weiss is swinging around an empty pizza box. Gotta say, at least the ears in the comic were kinda cute, the bat wings are just bland in comparison.

#6. Flash: Sir your zipper is in the shape of a zigzag and it’s very cringefail of you. The one redeeming feature is the visor but like, the hair? No. The scarf? No. The way they placed the colours on his outfit? Yikes. Throw the whole man out, Kilg%re did.

#7. Green Lantern: they put her in a blender with Ben 10 and hit ‘emulsify’ (this is insulting to Ben 10 which I am very sorry for, Ben 10 didn’t deserve this but then again neither did Jess). Her long curly hair is gone, her melanin is gone, her cute jumpsuit is gone, her brown eyes are GONE like I had my issues with the comic designs but at least it was a design and not just Ugly Bad Wrong.  

Final note: they really want us to believe that Batman beat up a guy and stole his tuxedo to blend in but during the entire time he was changing out of his hero costume and into a suit he somehow didn’t notice a pair of big honking WINGS on his back. Yeah right.

#7. Final Scores!!!

Plot: 2/10

Characters: -100/10

Spectacle Fights: 4/10

Themes: 1/10

Overall score, not including the points for ‘characters’: 2.5/10

Do NOT make another fucking movie with this premise. (I will write up Jessica's personal meta in the future, keep an eye out).

[metawatts]

Justice League X RWBY Review incoming

I'm writing up a review for this movie as a DC fan, and boy do I have a lot to say. I haven't been seeing much discussion in the rwde tags so far, which is appropriate because no one should waste eighty minutes of their life watching this, but just to give a sneak peek of my thoughts before the review is done, have a look at some of the notes from my reaction:

Safe to say. I didn't like it.

[metawatts]

ironwood fan, yah or nah

That would most certainly be a yah, but with an asterix. So: Yah*

*prefacing the idea that James Ironwood in volume 8 was from his first appearance written wildly out of his established  character, having been turned from a complex character with moral ambiguity to a trigger-happy Eeeevillll Dictator mockery of three different demographics (PTSD sufferers, soldiers/veterans, and the physically disabled in the case of being a Triple Amputee), all of which already get an awful rap in most media, and was horribly misused as an Antagonist TM, had every trait that was even slightly enjoyable to watch systematically stripped away from him, and was apparently despised by the writing team in a similar manner to Adam, with their bias showing clearly in how they write the show, his cop-out 'defeat/death', and how they act outside of the show (confirming his semblance as an on-the-fly question in a panel and giving a factually incorrect explanation, mocking Ironwood fans for being fans of him, acting generally unprofessional, and all the other general ableism wrapped up in vol 8,not just Ironwood's story)