| Church | |
|---|---|
| Voice actor(s) | Burnie Burns |
| First episode | 1 |
| Affiliation | Blue Team |
| Armor color(s) | Cobalt
blue White (as a ghostlike figure) |
| Full name | Private Leonard L. Church |
Private Leonard L. Church is a main fictional character in Rooster Teeth Productions' machinima comic science fiction video series Red vs. Blue. Voiced by Burnie Burns, co-creator and main writer of the series, he is the de facto leader of the Blood Gulch Blue Team, a group of soldiers engaged in a futuristic civil war against the Red Team. Rooster Teeth often uses Church, who has an irate disposition,[1] to advance the plot by managing the situation at hand.[2]
To provide a twist in character development, Burns decided to kill Church early in the series and to return as a ghost. However, this posed filming and post-production challenges for the creators. The series is filmed by capturing video from computer and video games; Church has been filmed in four different games representing the three different eras of the story.
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Church first appears in episode 1, spying on the Red Team with his teammate, Tucker.[3] The series establishes Church's disposition quickly;[1] annoyed with Tucker's questions about the Red Team, he responds, "You know what? I fucking hate you."[3] After Donut, the Red Team's new recruit, takes the Blue Team's flag in episode 4, Church chases him. However, in episode 8, Caboose, the Blue Team rookie, loses control of Sheila, the Blue Team's tank, and accidentally kills Church. Church reappears as a ghostlike figure in episode 10 to warn his teammates about Tex, the mercenary hired by Vic, the team's contact at Blue Command. Tex retrieves the Blue flag in episode 12 but is captured by the Reds. Church reappears and explains that Tex is his former girlfriend, now under the control of an evil, psychotic artificial intelligence. He rescues Tex in episode 14. However, to slow Tex's progress so that he can remove the AI from her head, he attempts to warn the Reds of Tex's second attack by possessing the Reds' Spanish-speaking robot, Lopez , in the season finale, episode 19. However, he fails, and Tex dies at Donut's hands.[3]
In season 2, set three months later, Church is still attempting to adjust to his stolen robot body. Eventually, however, he loses control after the body is damaged and he leaves it, to see if Lopez will repair himself. At the end of episode 29, Tex takes control of Lopez's body. She uses it as a bargaining chip to convince Church to help her destroy her evil AI, O'Malley. O'Malley had possessed Caboose just before her death. When the team learns of this, Church and Tex remove him from Caboose's mind. In the process, O'Malley escapes into a medic named Doc. Using a captured Donut as leverage, Church forces Sarge, the Red Team leader to build permanent robot bodies for Tex and himself. However, Sarge installs a bomb inside Church's body.[4] It explodes in episode 43 and sends all the characters into the future except Church, who is sent into the distant past. In episodes 50 and 51, Church travels to his recent past and attempts to prevent the events of the first two seasons. The situation is revealed as a predestination paradox, in which he causes not only the events of the first and second seasons, but also the death of his former captain, Butch Flowers. Eventually, Church manages to break the time loop and to travel forward in time to join the other characters.[5]
Later in season 3, Church attempts to learn more about a prophecy from a computer, Gary, that he first encountered in the distant past. Episode 57, the last of season 3, ends as Church, unaware that a creature is approaching him, responds to Gary's knock-knock joke with, "Who's there?"[5] episode 58 reveals that Church has been scared out of his body. After recovering his body, Church meets the Alien and learns about his quest, which involves Tucker's sword. After his teammates leave to help the Alien in his quest, Church returns to Blood Gulch in episode 68. He saves Simmons from execution by Sarge, assuming leadership over him. Church takes the Red Team's jeep before Simmons returns to the Reds. In episode 71, Church accidentally contacts Vic Jr. (Burns) via radio. This new character scoffs at the mention of Blue Command; as the episode ends, he says that he has much to tell, but the information is not revealed to the viewer.[6]
After Tucker, Caboose, and Andy return to Blood Gulch in episode 73, Tucker becomes ill for an unknown reason, and Church calls Doc for help. In episode 76, Doc reveals that Tucker is pregnant, but Church refuses to believe him until he learns from Andy that the Alien impregnated Tucker with a parasitic embryo. Church then returns to the Blue Base to help Tucker.[6] When the ship that Blue Command sends to Blood Gulch crashes, he claims it as his own, threatening the Reds with Sheila. However, Sheila abruptly leaves, forcing Church to abandon the ship. In episode 80 Church meets Junior for the first time, and quickly says that he should be killed. Believing the Reds may have reinforcements or weapons on the ship, he unsuccessfully attempts to contact Vic Jr.
While moving Sheila into the ship to repair her, Vic Jr. contacts Church and orders them to kill the Reds. Church infiltrates Red Base with Tex and Tucker. After a brief search of the base, they find it empty. Tex is contacted by Caboose and, after an unheard conversation, points her gun at Church demanding that O'Malley not move. Church quickly learns that Caboose and Sheila identified O'Malley as inside the Blue leader, which cannot be him as he was never officially promoted. He then accurately guesses that the real host of O'Malley is a revived Captain Flowers. Church and Tucker proceed to battle bounty hunter Wyoming and hunt down O'Malley, but ultimately fails as O'Malley enters Tex's mind and takes off in a spaceship, which then explodes in episode 100. This episode also has several different endings in which Church has various roles.
After the conclusion of the Blood Gulch Chronicles, Church is transferred out of Blood Gulch to another base, where he was the sole inhabitant for 14 months until Washington and Caboose arrived to ask for help on the matter of the Omega AI. Church is still much of a neurotic and initially refuses to leave until Washington mentions they found the crashed ship Tex took, and Church decides to go with them. After learning from a heavily-damaged Sheila on how the ship crashed, Church originally attempted to head over to the Valhalla Blue Base to see Tex's body, but was stopped short of this idea when Washington receives a distress signal stating that South and Delta are under attack by The Meta. After fighting it off, they pursue it to the windmill facility, where Caboose is injured and Church becomes a ghost to try and find out why the former cannot wake up. He then finds a recording left behind by Delta in Caboose's mind which tells him to tell Washington that "Memory is the key." When Church relays the message, Washington informs him that they must return to command to reactivate Alpha. Upon returning to Valhalla, Church attempts to locate Tex's body. He manages to find her body, but cannot locate her ghost. Disheartened, Church leaves with Washington to infiltrate Project Freelancer. When they reach the Command center, Wash takes Church to locate his own AI, Epsilon. During the explanation, he reveals to Church why he was placed in such a backwater canyon such as Blood Gulch, and then by himself, why he agreed with all of Delta's explanations, why he didn't act differently when Omega infected him, and why he can possess others. He reveals to Church that he is not only an AI, but the Alpha itself. However, Church is reluctant to accept this theory and is more comfortable considering himself a ghost. In episode 19 he distracts the Meta long enough for Washington to activate an EMP that would wipe out the AIs; Church asserts he is a ghost and will not be harmed. His fate was left unclear, although it is revealed the human mind he was based on was that of the former Director of Project Freelancer, the original Dr. Leonard Church.
In the trailer for the new season, Recreation, set three days after Relocated, Church was seen lamenting over his death alongside Tex as they watched Caboose. According to their conversation both are dead, but they have plans of some undisclosed nature. Church was shown in white armor, which is his color whenever seen as a ghost, however he was not transparent. Later in the actual series, Caboose transfers Epsilon's mind into a robotic being that has Church's voice and personality, but not his memories.
From the outset, Rooster Teeth establishes that Church is often angry.[1] Burns has said that, in this way, Church was modeled after Gustavo Sorola, who voices the character Simmons; at the time, Sorola was frustrated with his job.[7] To emphasize this trait, Caboose, for whom Rooster Teeth did not have a plan originally, was basically "a catalyst for getting Church pissed off."[8] When Church and Tex explore Caboose's mind as ghosts, Caboose's mental image of Church, Leonard, is portrayed as over-the-top, vulgar, and Caboose's best friend. During season 1, Rooster Teeth made a conscious decision to reduce vulgarity in Red vs. Blue, partly inspired by Homestar Runner[9] and partly in response to requests to make the videos safe for work. However, response to this change was worse,[4] and Leonard's excessive vulgarity was Rooster Teeth's response to criticism that they had eliminated too much foul language.[10] In the audio commentary for the season 4 DVD, Rooster Teeth has noted, however, that they had portrayed Church as less angry in later episodes.[1] Church expresses great sorrow when Caboose was killed by Gary and Wyoming in episode 98; Burnie Burns explains this as genuine sadness, although Matt Hullum notes it may be because Church never killed Caboose himself,[11] and in Reconstruction Chapter IV, set after 14 months of isolation, Church greets Caboose by trying to kill him with sniper fire. He and Tex have had a prior relationship that is referenced through the run of the series and at times shows to still care deeply for her. He reacts with shock when Tex is initially killed by Donut in Season 1 and is left shocked by her death at the end of the Series, becoming speechless at what he witnessed. In chapter 16 of Red vs. Blue: Reconstruction, it is revealed that Church is the Alpha AI, which is why Church wasn't affected by Omega, was assigned to out of the way military bases (Blood Gulch and High Ground), is able to survive without a body and always agreed with Delta. His memories of being human are explained to be nothing more than residual memories from the actual Leonard Church, upon whose mind the Alpha was based. The Rooster Teeth staff notes that Church is mostly just anger now, and while Omega took most of his rage, much of it still remained[12]
In the commentary for season 1 DVD, Burns recalls that he decided to have Church killed in episode 8 because he thought that having a dead character return as a ghost would give that character more personality.[13] Writing for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Wilma Jandoc stated that this turn of events made it apparent that Red vs. Blue was no "normal army story."[14] However, this plot twist made filming more difficult.[13] To achieve the transparency effect, Rooster Teeth filmed the scene once with Church and once without him. The video from the two takes was then dissolved together. However, this process caused other characters in the scene to appear transparent as well. To correct this, they had to be edited back in as fully opaque at the end.[15] Sometimes, Rooster Teeth forgot to shoot the second take before moving to the next scene. As it was nearly impossible to return to the exact camera position, this required the entire scene to be filmed twice more. Another complication was that dissolution worked poorly against certain backgrounds.[16]
The "Ghost" effect was altered when filming using the Halo 3 engine, instead of using their original effect they used poor active camouflage to give a similar effect.
When Burns decided to have Church possess other characters as a ghost, he debated whether he should attempt to sound like the character, or have the other character's voice actor attempt to sound like Church. When the possession occurs in episode 14, he found that having Hullum tweak his Southern accent normally used for Sarge was too complicated and thus attempted to sound like Sarge during the possession.[17] On the other hand, he found that attempting to mimic Donut's voice result in a voice too similar to the one used for Vic; as such, when he had Church possess Donut in episode 37, he merely used Church's voice.[18]
Other Rooster Teeth personnel have commented that some sound effects that Burns made while voicing Church were noticeably exaggerated. In commenting on episode 6, Geoff Ramsey, who voices the character Grif, noted the heavy breathing that Church makes while running.[18] Another sound that Rooster Teeth noted was a grunt made while jumping off a ledge in episode 33.[10]
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