ReBoot

Hey everyone,

I'd like to post a link my friend Mike Derick has shown me.

Him and I used to be really big fans of this show called ReBoot. It holds the title for being the FIRST completely computer-generated TV show in the world; and best of all - it's Canadian. It was created by a company called Mainframe Entertainment (now called Rainmaker Animation) back in 1994.

Sadly the show ended only after 4 seasons, with the fourth being somewhat of a letdown, as it seemed their budget was limited as the season was only 8 episodes (technically two movies, each split up into 4 episodes).

Mainframe Entertainment went on to create other shows (Shadow Raiders / War Planets and Beasties / Beast Wars: Transformers to name a couple), but none were to make such an impact on me as ReBoot had. Although I must admit, Beast Wars was still an entertaining show to watch; and the reason for the double-naming is because YTV deemed it too "violent" to have "wars" in the title of the show. So, Beast Wars was called Beasties, and War Planets was called Shadow Raiders.

ReBoot was by far the most creative and original series I have ever seen as a kid (until I came across the show Firefly, which sadly also got cancelled after only half a season. A movie called, Serenity, was made to finish the series due to the amazing DVD sales of the half season! It's also now available on Blu-ray.). ReBoot had great character development, creative concepts, original ideas, and witty humour by the likes I've never seen as a kid.

This was the first picture of ReBoot I've ever seen. It was on the front cover of TVGuide back in 1994. I remember tearing off that front cover and counting down the days to episode one of this show. I wonder if I still have that picture...

But enough delay... I present to you the link -- http://reboot.com

With an ominous countdown timer (8 days, 18 hours, 8 minutes, and counting, as of this post) , the single web page comes with nothing but a simple warning - "Incoming Game." I almost shat my pants when I saw the page! Hahaha!

I can tell you now, I haven't been this excited since the countdown to the release of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for the Nintendo 64. Man, oh man. I counted down each day by labelling my school pencil case with a countdown. Haha.

Anyway, the only thing that's keeping me grounded with this is the fact that at Anime North 2009 in Toronto, I met one of the original animators of the show. He was there promoting his book called "The Art of ReBoot". I didn't have any cash on me at the time so I couldn't purachse a copy. I wanted to buy it and have him sign it. It's available online now. You can purchase the book here.

I asked him what he thought about the new revamp of ReBoot. He said that him and the original creators of the show weren't too happy with the direction the revamp of ReBoot was going, because they themselves had their own "vision" as to what the show was going to turn out to be. That was somewhat disappointing to hear. I wish the original Mainframe Entertainment had the creative freedom to do whatever they wanted with the show. Sadly, it was never meant to be.

Some of the main characters from season one and two. Ah, the memories...

I am probably one of the biggest fans of ReBoot, next to Mike Dedrick. I was even one of the people who wrote the information you now see on the Wikipedia page for the show. And when YTV used to air ReBoot, I had to email them once to make corrections to their website information on the show. LoL.

But yes, Mike and I are probably two of the biggest ReBoot fans on the planet. Mike does freelance 3D animation, and I can tell you that ReBoot was probably one of the reasons why he got into 3D animation in the first place.

Me? ReBoot was probably one of the reasons why I got so involved in computers, everything from software programming to hardware peripherals to building my own computers. As I grew up, I've become known as the guy who can fix your computer and bring it back from death. LoL.

When we were first introduced to the grown up Enzo Matrix and AndrAIa, I was so taken aback at how cool and badass Matrix had become I could hardly contain myself. XD LoL!

ReBoot was also one of the reasons why I got into film-making, as I just loved the character development and interaction, as well as the witty humour. An online series I'm working on, called "Temporal Guardian", has a lot of influences and little "easter egg tributes" to ReBoot within it. And now you know why I call my blog "The Temporal Guardian", and also why the word "Guardian" was used in my online series - Because the show ReBoot had Guardians in it, who were protectors over the systems.

I really wish the entire ReBoot series was out on DVD/Blu-ray. It's such a shame that Seasons One and Two were never released on DVD. Only Season III became available on DVD. You can purchase them via these links:

Reboot - Season III, Vol. 1
ReBoot - Season III, Vol. 2 - The Net
Reboot - Season III, Vol. 3: The Web
Reboot - Season III, Vol. 4: The Viral Wars

On a side-note, a couple of years ago, I made friends with another big ReBoot fan, Lester Calleja, who also shares another interest with me - 'film-making'. I showed him the link and he's equally as excited as I am.

I can't wait to see what happens in 8 days. Whatever it is, I sure hope it's good news...

"Stay Frosty!"

- The Temporal Guardian -