Awesome. What ended up being the culprit?
Switching the TX and the RX wires did it.
Couple of questions...
Any way I can get it to stop flashing all the LEDs on initial startup? The Netduino doesn't make all the i/o ports high or something on initial startup does it? I've tried using a pull-down resistor on the 3 signal lines running to the LED driver but that doesn't work, it seems to send a high signal every time it starts up, which kind of ruins the startup animation.
Also, it seems to be misinterpreting a single momentary switch press as multiple presses. This results in it skipping animations, which is ok for the animation mode, as those are just a bunch of random animations in no particular order, but the movie replica mode (what I'm calling it right now) has a set of 3 animations that are in order, so it skipping animations really screws up that mode.