Gen Lock: An Autopsy on a passion project by a creative director with an ego

What do Gundam, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Sym-Bionic Titan, Pacific Rim and Code Geass all have in common? They are all part of the Mecha Genre, a genre that showcases robots in battle, some even giant. Gen: Lock, a series created by Rooster Teeth is the latest series to join that genre but it’s rife with its problems, resulting in a widely panned Season 2 and its cancellation.

So what exactly happened? Let’s find out.

To get the low down on what happened, we first need to know the man behind the project, who was also responsible for its downfall.

Gray Haddock.

Now who is Gray Haddock? Gray was the head of Rooster Teeth, a Texas-based production studio that is well known for making the series Red vs Blue and RWBY. Back then, he was hired as a visual effects artist and digital compositor working on season 9 of Red vs Blue and was also a voice actor in both shows. In 2014, he was promoted to head of animation at the studio; despite having no experience in animation, he had experience close to it and besides, Rooster Teeth had some serious nepotism problems back then.

And he had an idea for his first-ever solo project.

The idea for Gen: Lock first came to be in 2017, when Gray wanted to tell a cautionary tale about cultural warfare, seeing the current political climate reflecting the ideas he wanted to explore. Trailers were then shown in 2018, where it was described as “grounded science fiction”, citing Gundam, Ghost in the Shell, Aldnoah.Zero, Kiznaiver, the writing of Gen Urbochi (Psycho-Pass) and Tom Clancy novels as inspirations as well as their own RWBY series. It was made clear that Gray wanted to make a mature mecha series because as per his words: "there isn't enough mature mecha out there these days” and says the mecha genre heightens the story of gen:LOCK as it makes "metaphors for expression of self" easy to unpack.

He isn’t wrong in this case, as Pacific Rim (directed by the always great Guillermo Del Toro) took on the genre with Del Toro’s love and respect for the genre and thus made something with more in-depth characters than what you’d normally see in a Michael Bay movie. And it worked. Pacific Rim was released in 2013 to positive reviews (72% on Rotten Tomatoes) and managed to gross $411 million, becoming Del Toro’s most commercially successful movie to date (in fact, that’s how I came to find out about the guy). It even birthed new criteria for female characters called the Mako Mori test, with the requirements being that there should be one female character with an independent plot arc and that the character or her arc does not simply exist to support a male character's plot arc (which honestly, sounds better than the Bechdel test).

And it seemed like Gray wanted to go down that route, albeit with a more modern angle and an episodic format. And he had more ideas for this series.

Another selling point he had in mind for the series was a diverse cast of characters, hoping to normalise diversity this way. "I miss the Gene Roddenberry spirit behind Star Trek," Haddock said. "The way he presented a certain role or character. No one would bat an eye at their sexuality, gender, colour, or ethnicity. I'm sure we'll catch some flak for our characters and be accused of being social justice warriors. However, I think this kind of diversity needs to be more present in our storytelling."

This again, is a pretty good selling point and he has some good intentions with this.

And then we get to the main cast, which is an all-star cast. We’re talking about A-Listers, including Michael B. Jordan (who’s the executive producer), Dakota Fanning, Maisie Williams, Golshifteh Farahani, Asia Kate Dillon and the 10th Doctor himself, David Tennant. For a Rooster Teeth series, that’s a pretty stacked cast. Compared to RWBY, where most of the crew voiced the characters and are mostly unknown, here it’s completely different.

From the looks of it, it was setting up to be Rooster Teeth’s most ambitious show ever. Unfortunately, this kind of ambition came at a cost. To work on the series, Gray left RWBY during its 5th Volume without finishing his workload, leaving its production in disarray. And then he promptly ran into monetary problems with Gen: Lock, not realising how animation for a mech series is very expensive. And to make matters even more complicated, another RT creative, Georden Whitman was working on a dream project of his own, a 2D Fantasy Western series called Nomad to Nowhere.

What was Gray to do? He did have an idea at the end, though it wasn’t pleasant.

His solution was to slash the budget for Nomad to Nowhere and rush it into pre-production so he could use the money for his show instead. Georden didn’t take the news well, so much in fact that he outright quit Rooster Teeth altogether as he wasn't allowed to become a director for the series and wasn’t allowed to consult on the story or characters. Nomad was given the Firefly treatment and was put on abrupt hiatus for nearly half a year, leaving the ratings to plummet as it reached its finale. Yikes.

As for Gen: Lock itself, Michael B. Jordan not only accepts Gray’s offer to be in the show as he’s a massive anime fan but also funds the show with his production company and is the executive producer. From there, Gray’s ego begins to grow bigger as he hijacks several RWBY panels to promote the show and even poaches some of RWBY’s staff to work on the show.

And that still wasn’t enough money as they were still in the red. Both shows were under crunch time, with people working up to 80 hours a week of unpaid overtime and no resolutions whatsoever. Keep in mind that Rooster Teeth was no stranger to crunch time as Red vs Blue creators Miles Luna and Kerry Shawcross bunked in hotel rooms close to the office to save money. However, this ended up being an unhealthy approach as RWBY creator Monty Oum was well known for being a workaholic who would spend days working until his body crashed, putting his health on the line and even his apprentice Shane Newville tried to do the same thing for RWBY Season 3 only for it to result in him losing his job and his wife.

Gray is also forced to cut the 12-episode season down to 8 and it still wasn’t enough to get them back into the black. So Gray employs one last idea to get the show done on time. Using Interns to do unpaid work.

How that would work is that Rooster Teeth would hire interns to work 90-day temporary contracts, all unpaid, all crunching, and promise a full, paying job upon completion. However, upon the end of their contract, they were shown the door……and that was it for them. No job, just “congrats on your work, now get out.”

Needless to say, they weren’t happy and some even took to Glassdoor and warned against working for Rooster Teeth.

However, this meant the show finally finished and managed to be released in January 2019. Reception was positive, articles were written that promoted the show, and there was even a media tour to promote the series further. They even submitted it to the Emmys.

At last, things were going swimmingly for Gray.

Sure, the viewing numbers weren’t good; Gen: Lock was behind a paywall (they had their subscription service, like Netflix) unlike their other shows, meaning that their fanbase couldn’t access it as easily. But it did better when it aired on Toonami and soon, a second season is greenlit.

Happy ending, right?

Wrong.

Remember the intern scheme that Gray cooked up? Well, in June 2019, it came back to bite him as the bad Glassdoor reviews were unearthed and published online. Rooster Teeth’s response was to remain silent and wait for all of it to blow over, Shaun of the Dead-style. But then, a surprise witness comes forward and confirms that the reviews are true, making it clear that they can’t do that this time.

The surprise witness? Georden Whitman. Yep. Per his words:

“I’ll be the reliable one when I say it's true and people likely don’t want their careers affected when seeking jobs elsewhere. A ton of people were let go with the promise that they would become full-time. When they asked during production where things stood, they were lied to.

"This has been a big deal for a while now for those there, and whether RT is actually “working on it” or not. Actual improvement hasn't been seen in years, I have my own story to tell about it all, but for now, I’ll leave this here. I hope they do change and grow though."

The CEO of Rooster Teeth was furious at this, so much in fact that he demoted Gray to have him work only on the show and announced that there would be 2 heads of animation to not get a repeat of what happened before. Then the company went through layoffs and Gray outright quits Rooster Teeth, though it’s unclear whether or not he quit his volition or was fired.

Either way, the series was out of his hands now and Season 2 was being funded by HBO to avoid another fiasco. It was released in 2021 without any problems, but this time reception was less positive due to the bleaker tone, less action, and worse animation. It also tried to portray suicide as a positive thing. And thus the series ended with a bang, but not in a good way.

Gen: Lock and its production as well as management of Rooster Teeth serves as a cautionary tale for any creative working in the industry to not step on others or resort to dirty tricks to achieve your dream. In this day and age, resorting to underhanded practices or putting your worker’s health and well-being on the line will come back to bite you.

Compromise ain’t bad, folks.