Meet the Pyro

Meet the Pyro
Video Info
Released:	June 27th, 2012
Run time:	2:32

Pre-Release

In March 2010, Robin Walker revealed in an interview with the KritzKast Podcast that Meet the Pyro will let people see the world through the Pyro's eyes.^[1]

In a blog post^[2] telling about upcoming events in the game, the TF2 team confirmed Meet the Pyro would be released sometime in 2012, and also released a shot of the video.

In an interview on Gametrailers.com's "Bonus Round" during March 2012, Erik Wolpaw announced that Valve had recently finished the production of Meet the Pyro and that it would be released "soon", along with something else.^[3]

A short clip of Meet the Pyro was teased in Valve's video "Perpetual Testing Initiative", showing the part of the video teased in the first released picture. ^[4]

On the Team Fortress website, this was posted on June 22, 2012 by the Pyro: "Mmmmph mmmmph, mmmmm mmmmmp mmmmmph. Mmmmmph mpm! Mmmmmph mph mm! Hm mmmmmph, hmmmmph mm mmmmmph mmmmmph!". This later was translated as Morse code into "Monday", which was the day Pyromania started. ^[5]

Video transcript

Transcript
The term "Pyro" below refers to the protagonist, the RED Pyro. ["Meet the Pyro" text appears, then is burned away to reveal the feet of the Pyro, Fire Axe in hand, walking over a pair of glasses towards the camera and knocking a few empty bullet cartridges aside. Dreams of Cruelty begins playing.] [Cut to a small room. The RED Heavy is seen almost completely in silhouette.] Heavy: I fear no man. But that... thing... it scares me. [Cut to a view behind the Pyro's right shoulder. A BLU Engineer shuts a door before a BLU Scout can join him inside. The Scout pulls desperately on the handle. Cut again to the interview room. This time it is the RED Scout in silhouette.] Scout: No, I... I ain't, I ain't talking about that freak. All right? [Worried, he tries to detach the lavalier microphone from his shirt. He sits upright in chair, in near panic.] Scout: He's not here, is she? [Scout continues to tug as he stands and walks toward the camera, knocking it over.] Scout: How do I get this f**ing thing off?! [Cut to Pyro kicking down the door into the BLU team's room, Flame Thrower ready. Fade back to the interview room, this time with the RED Spy.] Spy: One shudders to imagine what inhuman thoughts lie behind that mask... [Cut to Pyro firing his Flame Thrower, then to a wider shot, showing an entire wooden town in flames.] Spy: ...what dreams of chronic and sustained cruelty? [Cut to a front view of the Pyro, zooming rapidly into the blackness of one of his eyepieces. There is the sound of the Pyro's breathing and a single white spot which zooms forward and splits into a binocular view. When these focus, it shows a psychedelic dreamscape. As Do You Believe In Magic? begins playing, the view from the Pyro's eyes shows colorful hills, lollipops, floating cats and quaint villages. The Pyro's flame thrower appears in his hands as an unusually-shaped brass instrument, spraying a rainbow-coloured mist over ground, causing colourful flowers to spring from the lawn in front of him. The Pyro laughs. Within this dreamscape, BLU characters appear as chubby little cherubs and sound like babies. As a BLU Heavy appears and bounces on the ground, the Pyro grabs a lollipop and cheers. The two converge seemingly happily. While the Pyro in the dreamscape shoves the lollipop in the Heavy's mouth, the scene cuts to the battle as he hits the Heavy with the Fire Axe. Then a BLU Scout appears, jumping around and finally resting on the Pyro's instrument. The Pyro blows bubbles in his face in his vision, but shoots the Scout with the Scorch Shot in the battle, knocking him back. In the dreamscape, a BLU Medic appears out of a box, and the Pyro closes the box on him. In reality, Pyro traps the BLU Medic in a shed by barring the door with his axe.] Medic: No! [Pyro bathes the shed and the Medic in flames, while in the dreamscape, the Pyro continues to shoot streams of rainbow mist from his weapon. As he passes, the Balloonicorn appears, and the BLU Engineer and Spy ride it. The BLU cherubs salute and celebrate the Pyro as he leaves while in reality...] Demoman: I'm burning! [A BLU Soldier is hit by a piece of the destroyed sentry of a BLU Engineer, who is shown flying off into the distance. A Scout flees while a BLU Sniper crashes out of a second-story window to the ground. He crawls over to the ankle of a nearby person. The sound of a Dispenser being destroyed in the distance is heard.] Sniper: Help! [The BLU Sniper is holding the Pyro's ankle. The Pyro looks down and shoots his flame thrower. The Sniper can be heard screaming as the view zooms in on the Pyro's mask, flames reflecting off the eyepieces as the Pyro tilts his head.] [Ending title card appears and accompanying music plays] [Cut back to the dreamscape, where the Pyro happily walks away into the sunset. The view zooms out and passes through the burnt, gaping hole in the a stomach of a BLU Soldier. The view transitions back to reality as the Soldier clutches his smouldering innards for a moment and then falls over with a stifled groan. The Pyro continues to walk away into the sunset, whistling to Do You Believe In Magic? as the town begins to collapse from the inferno, the streets littered with charred BLU corpses. Fade to black.*]

Notes

To coincide with the release of the last Meet the Team video, Valve released a public beta of the Source Filmmaker, the tool used to produce all the movies.
This video was uploaded twice to the official Team Fortress 2 channel. The second version can only be accessed via Adult Swim's website.
- In the version posted to Adult Swim, the RED Spy's cigarette is unlit, and the video doesn't doesn't introduce the Source Filmmaker at the end.
The matchbox seen as part of the title card has a picture of a Balloonicorn on it.
The music heard during the Pyro's massacre of the BLU team was added as a main menu track, titled "Dreams of Cruelty".
According to the closed captions on the official video, the RED Scout says, "He's not here, is she?" following Valve's long running joke of not revealing the Pyro's gender.
The song played when viewing the world through the Pyro's eyes is titled Template:W, by Template:W. As the Pyro is walking away from the burning town, the Pyro can be heard whistling a slower version of the song.
The manner in which the Pyro initially picks up the Lollichop and fires the Scorch Shot at the Scout are referenced in-game, via their taunts.
The Demoman is wearing the old "dynamite stick" class emblem. However, the baby Demoman seen by the Pyro has the current Stickybomb emblem.
The Pyro appears to carry a multitude of axes throughout the video. The first is seen when the Pyro hits the Heavy in the head with one. The second is seen when the Pyro locks the Medic in a shed, using a Fire Axe to lock him in. Near the end of the film, as the camera pulls out, an Axtinguisher can be seen, along with the standard Fire Axe, still sticking out of the Heavy's head.
At the end of the film, as the Soldier clutches his (lack of a) chest, the Rainblower can be seen peeking out on the left, into the real world.

Trivia

Template:W Template:W was another idea for the Pyroland sequence's background song. ^[6]
The Balloonicorn appeared on the cover of A Smissmas Story as an ornament, six months before Meet the Pyro was released.