Former Animator for Texan Made Not-Anime Accuses Rooster Teeth of Tarnishing Monty Oums "Legacy"

So for all 60 of you who are weird enough to like/watch RWBY, you'll wanna give this is a look: t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-H0KuOwKFYwZTJxbXg0SG5CTEE/view?usp=sharing&t=N2E0MjAxMzUxYjkzYTMxM2FhYzhmYWVkYWM0N2YyMzM5MDRjNDBhNSw2dGY4MHRRRw==

TL:DR which will be everyone since it's over 30 fucking pages

>Ultimate Edgelord Animator Monty Oum wants to make his own anime
>He's working for Rooster Teeth (Red vs Blue) so they agree to fund/produce it
>Monty eventually gets sick of working for RT, wants to move the project away and make it independent
>Monty suddenly dies because cats
>Rooster Teeth use this chance to make the show how they want to, now that the creator is dead
>Go to the extent of shutting out his widow from helping with the show
>They pretty much get rid of all the stuff he used/wanted to do and place in their own stuff
>Best friend/protege/co-director is fired and eventually makes this "tell all" letter

First for Yang a best.

Fucking hell, Roosterteeth are made out to be complete shitbags in this.

Also no JNPR vs. Raven.

Also no Jaune directly causing Pyrrha to die.

Also no Yang/Blake vs. Adam.

But take this with a grain of salt, he's an animator and close friend of Monty's, not a writer of the series. How the hell would Raven attacking JNPR make any sense... (Hurr durr let me attack these students at a cafe for no reason!)

Even though we missed some things that'd have been cool as fuck, Volume 3 wasn't that terrible for watcher.

Still this is a good letter that gives us perspective.

RWBY was shit under Monty and it's shit under Roosterteeth

Pretty bad that they cut out Monty's friends and family, but not surprising. The dead have no control over anything

RWBY is shit regardless. Whatever weeb shit Monty had in mind wouldn't save it.

>Go to the extent of shutting out his widow from helping with the show
Why the fuck would she have anything to do with it in the first place?

>Also no Jaune directly causing Pyrrha to die.
I don't think you know what "directly" means. Besides Pyrrha dying was her own dumbass fault.

The letter states she was essentially a head writer/director along with him.

A lot does reek of "US VS THE WORLD REEEEEEEE FUCK CORPORATIONS" but it is still a low move if even one thing said about the treatment of the guys widow is true.

ok, let me get this straight
>Employee for company pushes his pet projects. Company says, "Sure, when budget/schedules allow"
>Employee dies
>Company abandons his projects because he's dead.
>Someone upset because company is not using necromancy to commune with his spirit to continue work on his pet projects

Close,

>"Hey I wanna make this show"
>"OK, but since we're the production company we have the rights"
>Creator is kill
>"Well, since we own the IP, we have the right to make the show however we want"
>Creators best friend/protege gets butthurt

More like they're continuing the project however they like and not caring about how he wanted it to go.

>Employee for company pushes his pet projects. Company says, "Sure, when budget/schedules allow"
>Employee dies
>Company makes shitty show less cringy to watch

Reposting from the other thread:

I'm just skimming through it, but it sounds like they were just trying to streamline and standardize the animating process so it wasn't such a constant rush of slapping things together to meet the deadline. I can appreciate Shane wanting to honor Monty and keep doing things the way he like to do them, but it's pretty well known that Monty's 'process' was also grossly inefficient.

furthermore, most of the things involving them keeping Sheena at arm's length can probably be chalked up to acting and animation unions having pretty strict rules. Unpaid, uncredited work on writing, design, and animation are big no-no's, and having her have to audition for a voice part is not unreasonable at all. It very likely could have been that working outside the union rules precluded her from being involved in the show any further, even if she did join the required guilds or whatever after the fact.

Pyrrha knowingly walking to her doom and Yang getting dumpstered were fantastic changes, desu.

Read the stuff: Jaune apparently was going to be the cause and witnessing Pyrrha's death.

Unless there is a contract stating
"If Mr. Ohm dies, Rooster Teeth must match the resolve of his beneficiaries" there's not much to comment on.
When you work collaboratively, its the contract that defines what will happen with the IP. If RT has violated the terms of a contract, that is a matter of law to decide rather than a tell-all blog post.

>Read the stuff
Hell no.

Jaune being at the fight would have been ridiculous. There couldn't have been a fight at all because Pyrrha would have had to die saving his life in the first five seconds.

What we got still gives him plenty of guilt and room for development without requiring a contrived way for him to hold his own against Super Cinder for more than .5 seconds.

Not really. Pointless actions to raise the stakes is all it was.

>Ultimate Edgelord
>Makes a cartoon about cute girls doing cute things
Adorable=Edgy

No according to Shane the original idea for the fight was Jaune was there, Pyrrha actually holds her own against Cinder and might win until Jaune distracted her and Cinder killed her. Thus making his "It's all my fault" make sense.

For that matter Yang was supposed to actually hold her own against Adam for a while and Ruby was supposed to have actually defeated Neo instead of getting stomped and tricking her with her umbrella.

Apparantly the original Vol 3 had the good guys do much better and only lose by a small margin instead of getting stomped.

>t requiring a contrived way for him to hold his own against Super Cinder for more than .5 seconds.

According to Shane Maiden Cinder wasn't supposed to be that strong.

It's on record that the show was only "cute girls go to high school" at first just so he could pull the rug from under peoples feet when the "true tone" was set.

His planned interpretation for the show going dark was even edgier, and involved a teenage girl leaving a fucking nuclear shadow behind when she gets killed.

>but it's pretty well known that Monty's 'process' was also grossly inefficient.
Oh the irony.

Raising the stakes isn't pointless, user.

As much as I liked Pyrrha, her arc has a far more interesting end with her knowingly meeting what will probably be her doom than charging into a fight she thinks she can win and dying to save her BF (especially given the parallels with Achilles courting his own death).

If maiden Cinder wasn't going to be that strong, then what's the point of the Maidens as a plot point in the first place? If they're going to use them, they need to be formidable.

I tots agree with you, the guilt/agony is still there.


But the rough draft version would have been even more crushing, as Jaune had an active role of killing Pyrrha. Also.

And Jaune may have come across as more competent during his team's fight against Raven, and may have not been such a fucking pushover.

Why do you think internet people are obligated to give a shit about the law?

>Raising the stakes isn't pointless, user.
It is when the actions defy logic and are only taking so there can be a "shocking" death. If Pyrrha had no other choice but to go on a suicide mission it'd be fine but there were a million other options so one can only assume she legitimately just felt like dying.
If stakes need to be raised do it in a way thats not completely contrived.

Eh, some of the changes they instituted sound like fucking shit.

I agree Jaune getting Pyrrha killed would have been better fodder for angst, but it's just not believable that he could hang in that fight for more than a few moments. He can still rip himself up about failing to keep watch for roughly the same effect.

The Raven fight sounds cool, but the team was evidently already spread pretty thin with how many fights there were in Vol 3, so I don't blame them for cutting it.

If Maiden Cinder was supposed to be so strong, why was Amber such a punk bitch?

They should've cut the fucking SSSN fight for that.

In fact, just cut SSSN entirely.

Pyrrha chose to try and stop Cinder because Ozpin had made it clear that she had to be stopped.

Was it an ill-advised decision? Possibly, although we can't say for certain until we know more of what Cinder was trying to do, and what Ruby did to her.

However, that's why it was actually compelling. They set up the plotline of Pyrrha struggling with the immense expectations everyone has of her to always make the sacrifice, do the brave and heroic thing, and when she is presented with that chance she takes it, possibly in part as a result of all that pressure. Honestly, I found it to be one of the only times RWBY has managed some decently compelling character work.

They conveyed Amber's raw power decently, but the anime aura forcefields nonsense makes her getting offed by a sneak attack hard to buy, I agree.

It was so lame compared to Cinder through. Amber should've just lazered the fuck out of them.

Making a poor selfish decision isn't heroic or compelling.

Rooster Teeth is a collective soulless bunch of hacks and everyone that was entertaining/funny have take a back seat to Bernie and his ego while they shove interns up everyone's ass.

Shane doesn't play well with others. If he were actually following in Monty's footsteps then there wouldn't be a problem, the friction is coming from him.

I'd shut out his widow too, considering she's the one who killed him.

>Production company that lets employees make shows for the hell of it is a collective soulless bunch of hacks
Shane, it's time to stop posting.

I'd argue that volume 3 was easily the best one.

I'm inclined to agree, as well. Its another thing to consider when taking this all in.

it really was. and part of me thinks it's exactly because it wasn't what monty envisioned.

monty wanted to make a girls fighting anime. he didn't care about the characters or story beyond what would looks "cool" or "awesome" he didnt cared what would make logical sense.


remember, he want adam to cut the train in have LENGTHWISE and then yang beat him to save blake.

>volume 3 directly rips off grand magic games from fairy tail like to a scary point
>animation and battles are fucking awful messes
>nothing is as great as volume 1 or 2
>people still praise it mindlessly even though in episode 1 of volume 3 they used FUCKING STILL IMAGES of places with peoples OC's

Is everyone who watches RWBY mindless or do they just not care that their show has become utter trash?

The back half of Volume 3 was actually a decent story.

RWBY's writing was inarguably trash through Vol 1 and Vol 2, and it's still not amazing, but for the first time we have real emotion, actual loss, a sense of genuine danger, and real stakes for the protagonists moving forward.

This is a pretty decent assessment.

I'd keep Sheena at a good distance too. Isn't she the reason this guy died in the first place? Something about him being deathly allergic to cats and her bringing a cat home anyway. She's mooching off of every LA cosplayer known to man now. I agree that it's shitty to kick the friend out, though.

>Become
Do you seriously think that Volumes 1 and 2 were in any way better than 3?

This.

So his girlfriend killed him right?

Unintentionally, but yes. It's literally all her fault.

Then the did the right thing with the way it actually turned out.

Having Ruby basically both fail to beat Roman Nad have to use her brains to incapacitate Neo makes it so she has a goal to reach and shows how far from Cinder and her lieutenants levels she really is. Same for Yang when dealing with Adam. It gives our heroes something to strive.

Not to mention it makes our villains seem like a bigger challenge for the future.

I'm actually glad they didn't go this route. People hated Jaune enough when he didn't stop a half maiden-powered Cinder from getting in even though there was shit he could do. If he directly caused Pyrrha's death, fans would go nuclear on him.

Also, those harsh losses showed our heroes that they have a long way to go. Its harsh, but it helps the story later on.

>rips off from fairy tail
What's sad is that this is exactly what they were hoping for, they had "anime homework" just so they could take pieces from other stories.

If you're going to rip off anime, why Fairy Tail?
Like, it's okay, but it's not great or anything. There's so much better material out there to ape.

Maybe because it's not super popular that no one will notice.

Doesn't his brother play Ren?

Seriously, Vol 3. made me invested in this show for more than the music and the occasional good fight for the first time. They executed the dark ending well, and actually dealt some meaningful setbacks to the protagonists.

For the first time, I am legitimately interested in where the show goes from here.

And Monty already nearly severed ties with his family because he chose to not go to his own mothers funeral because he figured it would get in the way of his stupid quest to always be working.

Can you elaborate? Honestly curious.

Monty's girlfriend wanted a cat.
Monty is allergic to cat.
Monty's girlfriend REALLY wants a cat.
Monty goes to a hospital for an allergy test, for drug options.
Monty has a reaction to the test.
Monty dies.

That's my understanding of the events, anyways.

Not sure if we're allowed to link to the farm, so here's the text from the OP of the thread she has on that site.

>Nicole "Sheena" Duquette "Oum" is a cosplayer from Vancouver, BC who dropped everything to move to Austin, TX so she could sleep her way into RoosterTeeth. She "married" Monty Oum, something that was only revealed after Monty was in an coma following anaphylaxis caused by a treatment for his cat allergy, after first hooking up with him PAX 2013. It's highly suspected they only married so she wouldn't get deported because no one knew about their marriage (including Monty's family). It's also worth noting that the reason Monty was being aggressively treated for his cat allergy is because Nicole decided to bring home a stray.

After Monty's death, she took thousands of dollars worth of donations for his care and funeral and went on vacation in England with Jnig, flaunting her new purchases the whole way. After returning, she used more money to get giant fake boobs despite having "severe" scoliosis that she uses as an excuse for pity.

She is currently living in LA, despite being in the country not as a legal citizen, and not being allowed to have a job in the country. She is a Twitch booby streamer, sells prints of herself waering costumes she bought, and fame whores herself at every con that will let her. The costumes she actually makes herself are hilariously poorly stitched and sculpted. She also posts endless photos of the little murder weapon she decided to keep and name Mr. Noodle, and even sells merch of the fucking cat.

Wait seriously

He died because of a fucking allergy test? Jesus christ.

The train thing sounds sick, but they were just supposed to have a fight. Yang still would have lost.

Yeah.

Man, no wonder RT gave her the boot if that's true.

At least it wasn't the allergy test that killed him.

A little. They were more fun at least.

I don't mean that in the sense of the tone shifting, I mean it was just a bit different.

I don't know what is just bad publicity on RT's part at this point.

With how hard they cut her off, and how Shane talked about her, could be most of that is just rumormongering.

>an open letter...
>it's 36 pages.

Shit man I'm on the fucking toilet at the office. Do me a fucking favour

Yeah, sorry to air out drama here, but the way people keep referring to her as "his widow" as if this woman is grieving or something really grinds my gears. I don't even care about this cartoon, but that whole situation left a bad taste in my mouth.

Volume 1 and 2 had better fights, but were absolutely rancid everywhere else, other than the music and the occasional bit of banter.

Volume 3 had better non-fight animation, actual professional VAs, and the makings of a halfway decent story. There's really no comparison.

Wait... they actually killed Pyrrha off?

Has Jaune gone full Shinji mode then?

shit's fucked

>volume 3 directly rips off grand magic games from fairy tail like to a scary point

As if Fairy Tail is the first manga to have a tournament go horribly wrong. Fucking Yu Yu Hakusho did that shit with Dark Tournament decades earlier and it probably borrowed the idea form somewhere. The tournament was a solid basis for a solid story. What's next, you gonna hold against RWBY the fact that its main character is currently part way through the "Heroes Journey"?

The fight scene, I'll give you, although considering how much more there was to animate in volume 3 between the crowds and the new locations and the monster invasion, I can let it slide for 1 volume. Volume 4 better get back towards Monty level though.

>woah this is really interesting
>what series is this?
>rwby

ugh, why did I even bother to read the first pages?

It's unfortunate that Sheena got left by the wayside, but if she was working under the table - unofficially and uncredited - it's going to happen. While obviously he couldn't know he was going to die when he did, if he'd wanted her on the project, he should have worked to get her an official status, otherwise she'd just be regarded as his sounding board rather than a contributor. I mean, she IS a trained animator herself.

And had no idea Rooster Teeth was such a labyrinth of secrets and fuckery

This is some Phil Hartman level shit

RT has been dead since they changed the podcast from The Drunk Tank

But the show still isn't good.

I'd rather have a bad show with good fights and stupid shit then a mediocre show with so so fights and lame nothing scenes.

Holy fuck, no wonder Rooster Teeth don't want nothing to do with her. She sounds like pure scum.

Pyrrha dying has been the foundation for what could be an actually worthwhile story.

It gives the protagonists a tangible failure, completely undermines the wise anime headmaster cliche, concludes Pyrrha's arc ably and poignantly, and creates real stakes for fighting the villains in the future.

Pyrrha was my favorite character, and I'm not even mad, because her death was actually well done

>Well done

>Only non-retarded character bites the dust

What was her character arc exactly? I thought she and Jaune were doing the whole training together shit.

I also thought Jaune was going to get his shit together and be interesting unlike literally every other character.

dude was REALLY allergic

I agree. A great character can die, as long as their death has meaning to the narrative. She went out swinging against the big bad. Can't ask for a better fall than that.

Who the fuck even dies of cat allergies in the 21st century?

So he literally died because the cunt wanted a cat?

If that's true I really hope she gets deported or something. Fuck her.

Mounty Oum.

I wonder who could be behind this post.

>Pyrrha
>only non-retarted character
Xlthuathopec is that you?

I'm not going to read the thread or even the link just tell me is RWBY gonna be cancelled or no?

No, this isn't that shitty.

>What was her character arc exactly

>Look at how perfect Pyrrha is
>actually it's kind of stressing me out how everyone expects me to be so perfect
>I kind of don't want to sacrifice myself but everyone expects me to live up to their ideal of me
>sacrifices herself in the end

Not saying it was Shakespeare, but it was a decently executed character arc, thanks almost entirely to the Vol. 3 development, of course.

Like I said, I only saw season 1 and a bit of season 2.

But everyone else seems like fucking morons. I mean Jaune got a pass; he's supposed to be the inept rookie.


Why is Ruby a sperg?

Fuck no. Fiscally and artistically it's probably doing better now than ever.

Because she's a dumb kid in a class of older students.

Is she?

Nothing makes sense about her, she is apparently a super competent fighter.... yet I never saw it, she's a fucking moron.

I liked it better when all RT was known for was Red vs Blue.

died like a punk ass basic nigga

> shutting out Sheena "brought cats into the house even though my green card husband will die from them" Oum a bad thing

>Her death was actually well done
>Throws Jaune under the bus and suicides